ERBIL, Iraq — Iraq is in the midst of a refugee crisis. With Islamic State militants having taken over swathes of the Levant and establishing a caliphate from Raqqa, Syria, through to Mosul, Iraq, over one million Iraqis have found themselves seeking refuge from the marauding militants.
The front lines are fluid in Iraq, but the chaos is more defined than within Syria. Safe areas still exist, such as parts of the south and in the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq in the north, and thousands continue to seek refuge there every day.
Across the country, average citizens, NGOs, mosques and churches have all reached out to offer refuge to the hundreds of thousands of refugees made homeless by the Islamic State over the past two months. People are refusing to be divided between religious and sectarian lines. Across Iraq, Muslims have offered refuge to Christians, Christians to Muslims, and both to many of the small groups of minorities, such as the Yezidis, who have been targeted hardest by Islamic State militants.
In Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, and a city is under Islamic State control, militants have carried out public lashings and executions against individuals who do not adhere to their draconian laws. Unsurprisingly, many of the over one million displaced persons from Iraq’s latest war have come from the city and its surrounding areas.
South of Baghdad
In the city of Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, Sheikh Sanaan al-Saadiye and his mosque have been offering shelter within the walls of the religious buildings to hundreds of individuals and families from Mosul, including Christians. Many of those who have been displaced are Christians who fled the Islamic State militants after they threatened death to anyone who does not convert to Islam.
“We are helping by bringing them food and also giving them some money, and we will continue to do this until they are in a better situation,” Sheikh al-Saadiye told MintPress News. “This is what the Quran has taught us, to help anyone that is in need, regardless of their religion. This is real Islam.”
Sheikh al-Saadiye says that the religion Islamic State militants profess to practice is not any form of Islam he recognizes, but rather they are hijacking Islam to shroud a series of criminal acts. Reciting passage after passage from the Quran, Sheikh al-Saadiye is keen to make his point that the militants are not following the holy book in any form — a view that has been echoed in cities and towns throughout Iraq.
Sheikh al-Saadiye says the resources at his mosque are being stretched thin, and he relies on the goodwill of the Muslim community to provide the help the displaced Christians in Najaf need. Mosque members and the wider community have responded in numbers in the city, donating food and clothing and even offering their homes to shelter Christians who have fled Mosul.
“If someone is displaced — Muslim or Christian — then they are more than welcome to be with us. We will share everything we have with them, our housing, our money and our food. It isn’t much, but it is enough,” Sheikh al-Saadiye said.
Further north
Further north, in the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq, more than 700,000 refugees have escaped the wrath of the Islamic State since early June by fleeing into the region controlled by the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). As the mass influx of displaced people is straining the resources of the KRG and Kurdish NGOs like the Barzani Foundation, people from all sectors of life are coming forward to help those who have had to leave everything behind because of the Islamic State.
To help organize relief efforts, the KRG has set up donation days at various locations throughout its region, encouraging people to offer help to the newly displaced.
At such a collection in Erbil, Fakhruddin Bahauddin, general advisor for the Kurdish Ministry of Education, told MintPress that he believes the public has a responsibility to help people from all walks of life.
“We are here to help everyone, we don’t care if they are Muslim or Christian. The help is going to everyone, and everyone in Kurdistan has a part to play to help these people. All of these people,” Bahauddin said.
At this particular collection drive, tents lined up in an empty parking lot slowly filled with donations throughout the day as people streamed in to offer whatever they could. People brought blankets, diapers, canned goods, carpets and clothing, among a host of other items. Government officials and individuals from community outreach organizations mulled around, speaking with donors, encouraging their goodwill, and talking about the current refugee crisis and the best ways to respond to it.
Bahauddin stressed his belief that because of the Kurds’ history of oppression and persecution, the people in Kurdistan, in particular, should be open to helping everyone.
“We are here to help the refugees that have come to Kurdistan from Iraq, from Yezidi — Muslim, Turkmen, Christians, Iraqis, Arabs, everyone. The people in this region are all brothers. We have to help each other and stay together,” Bahauddin said. “What we do is just a piece of humanity, it is what we have to do because the people in Kurdistan know what it is like to be in bad situations.”
From Najaf to Erbil, and in many towns and cities in between, average citizens are collecting supplies and donating money to help the continuing stream of displaced individuals who have managed to escape the clutches of the Islamic State. As Islamic State militants attempt to create sectarian divides and dissolve religious minorities from Iraq, people throughout Iraq continue to show they do not believe in the rhetoric espoused by the militants. With donations continuing to flood in to help the displaced — regardless of their religious beliefs — Iraqis and Iraqi Kurds are eager to show that the brutality of the Islamic State is not resonating with the vast majority of Iraq’s citizens.