Kurdistan Region Has Become a Safe Haven for the Christians of Iraq

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - In a stark and revealing tale of two vastly different realities, the Kurdistan Region has firmly established itself as a secure and welcoming safe haven for Iraq's beleaguered Christian community, a stark contrast to the climate of fear, violence, and neglect that has driven them from their ancestral homes in the central and southern parts of the country.

While ancient Christian neighborhoods in cities like Mosul now stand as hauntingly empty monuments to a vibrant past, in the provinces of the Kurdistan Region, Christian life is not only surviving but thriving, a reality made possible by a deep-rooted culture of coexistence and a government that has consistently and actively protected its minority communities.

The peaceful and normal life enjoyed by the tens of thousands of Christians who now call the Kurdistan Region home is a powerful testament to a different model of governance, one that has opened its doors when others have failed to provide even the most basic security.

The picture of this peaceful coexistence is particularly clear in Duhok province, which is now home to more than 50,000 Christians.

Here, nearly 100 churches have been built, and the community is free to perform all of its religious ceremonies without fear or obstruction.

Nariman Wahid is one of the tens of thousands of Christian individuals who have found refuge and a new life in the peace and security of the Kurdistan Region.

Nariman’s words, simple yet profound, capture the essence of what this safe haven represents for Nariman and the surrounding community. “When going to church and school, a sense of safety prevails,” Nariman says. “Kurdistan provides security and peace.”

Crucially, Nariman speaks not just of security, but of a genuine and deep-seated social harmony.

He describes a life where the lines between different religious and ethnic groups have blurred into a shared sense of community. "With other components such as Yazidis and Muslims, we are together in happiness and sorrow, and there is no difference between them," Nariman explains.

This on-the-ground reality, where daily life is defined by mutual respect and shared experience, is the living embodiment of the culture of coexistence that the Kurdistan Region's leadership has actively fostered.

This vibrant and secure existence stands in harrowing contrast to the situation faced by Christians in other parts of Iraq.

The city of Mosul, a historic heartland of Iraqi Christianity, now serves as a grim and poignant example of the devastation that has been wrought upon the community.

The Christians neighborhood, one of the city's oldest and once most vibrant Christian quarters, is now almost completely deserted.

Where more than 10,000 Christians once lived, creating a bustling and integral part of the city's social and economic fabric, today only a single Christian citizen remains.

Saadullah Baisoon, a Mosul resident, is a living witness to this tragic exodus. "This area was all Christian, its history goes back more than 2,000 years," he says, his words a lament for a lost world.

The turning point, he explains, was the brutal reign of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), which unleashed a genocidal campaign against the region's minorities. "During the ISIS era, they all migrated," he recounts, "and most of them went abroad and to the Kurdistan Region."

Even after the territorial defeat of ISIS, the deep wounds of fear and mistrust have prevented the community's return. The failure of the Iraqi security forces to provide a credible and lasting guarantee of safety has been a decisive factor.

"Due to the lack of security and trust in the security forces, they are not willing to return," Baisoon explains.

This failure of the state to fulfill its most basic duty—the protection of its citizens—is the primary reason why ancient communities have been uprooted and why the Kurdistan Region has had to step in to provide the sanctuary that the federal government could not.

The Kurdistan Region's role as a refuge for persecuted minorities is not a recent phenomenon, but a long-standing and defining feature of its identity, a fact that has been recognized and lauded by senior international figures.

Just this week, Zalmay Khalilzad, a veteran American diplomat and former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, publicly praised the "uniquely impressive record of positive interfaith relations" of the Kurdistan Region and its leadership.

He drew a sharp contrast between the empty rhetoric of "tolerance" often heard on the world stage and the concrete, and often risky, actions taken by the Kurdish people. "Many people throw around the term 'tolerance' - I am proud of my Kurdish friends for showing us what it actually means," he declared in a statement on social media.

Ambassador Khalilzad pointed to the KRG's actions during the height of the ISIS crisis as a prime example of this commitment. "At one time," he recounted, "they had to postpone the opening of their school year because they needed the classrooms to house Christians fleeing from violent persecution."

This extraordinary act of sacrifice, which saw the educational needs of the region's own children temporarily set aside to provide emergency shelter, is a profound and moving illustration of the depth of this cultural and political commitment.

This commitment has been consistently and powerfully articulated by the Kurdistan Region's leadership.

At the height of the crisis, President Masoud Barzani famously told the displaced Christians, "You are not guests here, you are in your own homes and land. Your situation is our situation; we live together and we die together." This foundational promise of a shared destiny has been the guiding principle of the KRG's policy ever since.

This policy extends beyond simply providing a safe haven; it involves the active and tangible support for the religious and cultural life of these communities.

A powerful and recent example of this was the inauguration just this week of the magnificent new Umm al-Nour (Mother of Light) Cathedral in the Christian enclave of Ankawa. The grand new church, which was funded entirely by the KRG, was described by Prime Minister Masrour Barzani as a "gift" to the thousands of Christians who had sought refuge in the region.

In a single day that powerfully symbolized this even-handed approach to all faiths, the Prime Minister, just hours after inaugurating the new cathedral, also laid the foundation stone for a new, expanded Al-Azhar Institute in Erbil, the only branch in Iraq of the world-renowned center of moderate Islamic learning.

As the Prime Minister stated at the cathedral's opening, these actions are "evidence and a sign of the diversity of Kurdistan's society and the importance the Kurdistan Regional Government places on all religions and on the further deepening of peaceful coexistence."

For the tens of thousands of Christians like Nariman Wahid, who have made the Kurdistan Region their second home, this is not just a political slogan; it is the lived reality of a life of safety, respect, and dignity that was denied to them elsewhere.