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Qaraqosh (Iraq) (AFP)
Seven years ago, Munir Gabriel left his hometown Qaraqosh to escape the black-clad jihadists who destroyed his city and church, but this Christian from northern Iraq was in that same church today, waiting for a man dressed in white, Pope Francis. .
“It’s safer here,” the 61-year-old math teacher told France Presse. “It’s great to see the Pope. We never expected him to come to Qaraqosh.”
“Maybe that could help rebuild the country and finally bring peace and love. Thank you.”
At the entrances of the village, the inhabitants of Qaraqosh stood on the sides of the roads, carrying palm leaves and olive branches like the one with which Jesus was received in Jerusalem, welcoming the extraordinary visitor, while a cross was raised to the entrance to the city. They are the same ones who boarded trucks with only their clothes on their bodies to escape ISIS in the summer of 2014.
– traditional clothes –
Then, in just a few days, most of the city’s 55,000 Christians fled and most sought refuge in Kurdistan, including Gabriel.
The man fled from Qaraqosh to Erbil for three years, then returned to it in 2016 after the liberation of northern Iraq from the extremist organization, and was able to rebuild his home in 2020.
Despite the organization’s attempt to annul any trace of the Christian presence in the town, which dates back centuries, there are already 26,000 Christians who return to it. Thousands of them waited with great joy for the Pope on Sunday near and inside the Great Church of the Immaculate.
To the rhythm of Syriac melodies and roses, the Pope entered the great church of Al-Tahira.
Inside, only private invitations were allowed. Among them were women and men in their traditional clothes, and children carrying roses, celebrating an exceptional Sunday in their village.
Although several participants did not wear masks, some hygienic procedures were followed, such as measuring the temperature of those entering the church.
The great joy reflected the great pain to which the Qaraqosh children were subjected. On the Pope’s visit, they saw a glimmer of hope at a time when painful memories of the horrors of war were still fresh in them.
The jihadists dominated the details of daily life in Qaraqosh … They imposed bloody penalties and executions here, and established the sale of slaves and open flogging yards, and other violent and brutal human rights violations.
– “Don’t despair” –
In his Sunday address to the sons of Qaraqosh, whose sons also call him Baghdeda and Hamdania, the Pope tried to stain these wounds.
He said, “The road to full recovery may still be long, but I ask you, please, not to despair.”
“You need the ability to forgive and, at the same time, the courage to fight,” he added, in a country where sectarian tensions are still present.
For Amal Ezzo, 55, who runs a school in Qaraqosh, the need for that “courage”, requested by the Pope, is urgent.
The woman who also wore the decorated traditional dress, despite her joy at the Pope’s visit, regrets that “the government did not help us rebuild our houses, rather international organizations helped us.”
In his speech, the Pope addressed a special greeting to the women.
“I would like to thank with all my heart all the mothers and women of this country, the brave women who continue to give life despite the violations they face and the injuries they inflict,” she said, adding: . and protection. That they receive attention and give opportunities. ”
Iraq has one of the lowest female employment rates in the world, yet one in ten households is headed by a woman in Iraq, where wars have claimed the lives of parents, husbands or children for the past 40 years. years.
As for Father Avram Azar, a Dominican who was present at the Al-Tahira church, Iraqis listen to “a man who says simple and real things.”
As for Cardinal Louis Sacco, patriarch of the Chaldean Church who has attended this visit for a long time, he said that this moment is above all a moment of “a celebration of the return after displacement.”
© 2021 AFP
