Damascus Neighborhood a Refuge for Thousands of Iraqi Christians

“Those who come now say it’s getting worse day by day. Christians cannot go out to work, to shop or to pray without risking their lives,” said one Iraqi man.

On a recent October evening, families sat on plastic chairs in the darkened street and spoke quietly of their experiences. There are no street lights, because the Syrian government has not approved utilities for the unauthorized residential zone.

Iraqi Christians feel somewhat at home here: Across from a shop selling statues of Mary and the saints stands the Catholic parish of St. Abraham. It serves as a place of worship, dormitory, sports center, day clinic and soup kitchen.

“We built it seven years ago, knowing this would become a center of services in an area that had nothing — not even a place to play. Now all the children, Muslims and Christians, use our soccer field,” said Father Malik Abdalnoor, the Melkite Catholic priest in charge of the parish.

“Kashkol” means “from all places,” and when the church complex was built, the neighborhood was filled with new arrivals from Syrian villages, Palestinian territories and Sudan. Then, with the start of the Iraq War, Iraqi refugees started to come.

“This whole area is now filled with Iraqis,” Father Abdalnoor said, pointing to the tightly packed apartment blocks across from the church.

Down a dirt alley and up two flights of steps lives the family of Chaldean Catholic Deacon Joseph Toma, who fled Iraq a month before the bombing began in 2003. On the wall hangs the couple’s wedding picture, one of the few personal belongings they were able to bring when they packed their seven children in a car and drove to Syria.

“We were running from the war. But we were also told by some Muslims that if we didn’t leave they would destroy our home,” the 64-year-old Toma said over Turkish coffee in his living room.

While other Iraqi Christians have said Islamic extremism has been unleashed in the aftermath of the war, Toma said anti-Christian pressure from Muslims began long before the fall of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

“Christian problems began in 1961, when the fighting started in the North. When the government went after Kurds, they also destroyed many Christian villages,” he said.

As for Saddam, Toma said he is happy to see him out of power.

“I prayed to God to end the government of Saddam Hussein. If I were sick, I could not get medicine, but he built himself houses as big as Paris,” he said.

But Toma said that after deposing Saddam the United States has inexplicably presided over the absolute disintegration of Iraqi life.

“Now it is worse. Now anyone can go around and kill, burn houses, destroy property and commit terrorism. There’s no government, and terrorism is everywhere,” he said.

He said he thinks the United States should have immediately installed a strong president for five years to keep order in the country. The architects of the war should have foreseen the problems that have erupted, he said.

Meanwhile, although he is pleased that the Syrian government allows his family to stay, Toma is unable to legally find work in his host country. He worked for 40 years for the state-run insurance company in Iraq, and before that spent two years as a houseboy in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

He said he thought the U.S. connection might help him and his family to emigrate to the United States. The U.S. Embassy in Damascus thought otherwise, he said, and his efforts to get visas have led nowhere.

Two of his sons have managed to emigrate, one to Germany and one to Australia.

As for returning to Iraq, Toma shook his head sadly.

“There is no hope of going back. Where would we go? They have burned our house. And if I take my daughters there, they would force them to become Muslims,” he said.

He said many Iraqi Christians have similar stories to tell.

“I am waiting for the world leaders to take an interest in us,” he said.

By John Thavis