By Mark Riedemann
It is the silence that
you notice first. Not just a lack of noise but an absence of sounds. Even the
birds have left. I am in Telskuf, Iraq, about 20 miles north of the Islamic
State (ISIS) stronghold of Mosul and a mile and-a-half from the front line.
The town is abandoned;
its inhabitants, including approximately 12,000 Christians, fled the advance of
ISIS militias during the night of August 6, 2014, finding refuge in the nearby
city of Alqosh or in the Kurdish capital Erbil.
Under a blazing sun,
we press against the shadow of abandoned shells: houses with gaping mouths,
pockmarked walls fronted by the husks of blackened cars betraying the brutality
which took place just a few weeks prior. On May 3, 2016, hundreds of ISIS
fighters, multiple car bombs and suicide bombers broke through Kurdish lines
before a counterattack supported by US airstrikes turned ISIS back.
Casualties included
three Kurdish fighters and a 31-year-old US Special Forces soldier. According
to unconfirmed reports by Peshmerga soldiers, more than 50 ISIS soldiers were
killed. They were photographed and then bulldozed into a roadside grave. The
earth is still fresh.
I am walking through
the town as part of a delegation from the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in
Need (ACN). We have come in a visit of solidarity to the Christian town of
Alqosh. Roughly 10 miles from Telskuf, Alqosh is the last remaining major
Christian city on the Plain of Nineveh in what once was a valley full of
Christian villages—the great majority of them since occupied and destroyed by
ISIS.
It’s there that the
Chaldean Catholic Bishop Mikha Pola Maqdassi has organized support for the more
than 500 displaced families in addition to the village's existing 1200
families. All are seeking work where there is none.
The Catholic Church is
the main provider of social care and, above all, hope. As Bishop Maqdassi
explains, the youth are discouraged, finding themselves in a world that is
wasted.
We make our way to
Telskuf's Catholic Church. Again the silence is broken only by broken glass
underfoot. The church has been looted and destroyed. The statue of the Virgin
Mary has been desecrated, the head cut from her body—the symbol of beheading
the signature of ISIS. The Peshmerga soldiers with reflective sunglasses and
guns cradled take positions at key vantage points: the dome, broken windows,
the bell tower, all to assure our security.
We kneel to pray in
what was the choir loft. Led by Father Andrew Halemba, who oversees ACN’s
Middle East projects, we pray the Lord's Prayer for peace, our normally
easygoing and cheerful group shocked and silenced.
A Christian general, a
generous man with graying temples waits respectfully and when we are finished
implores us to join him for a meal. Although time doesn't allow for many
stories, he tells us that he fights ISIS so that those who live in the
remaining Christian villages in the region may be protected.
We walk back through
overturned streets. I wonder when the birds will come back.
With picture of street scene in Telskuf (© ACN)
Editor’s Notes:
Directly under the
Holy Father, Aid to the Church in Need supports
the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need.
ACN is a Catholic charity - helping to bring Christ to the world through
prayer, information and action.
Founded in 1947 by Father Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul
II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity,” the organization is now at work
in over 145 countries throughout the world.
The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including
providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church
buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since
the initiative’s launch in 1979, 43 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed
worldwide.
For more information contact Michael Varenne at
michael@churchinneed.org or call
718-609-0939 or fax718-609-0938. Aid to the Church in Need, 725 Leonard Street,
PO Box 220384, Brooklyn, NY 11222-0384. www.churchinneed.org
