Auxiliary Bishop Basilio Yaldo of Baghdad, Iraq, and Chaldean Patriarch Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako recently paid a visit to a Baghdad complex where many Christian families are in danger of being evicted.
According to ACI MENA, CNA’s partner organization for the Middle East and Northern Africa, Sako and Yaldo are looking for immediate options to provide refuge for the sizable number of Christians who are now in danger of being without homes this winter.
In order to delay the judgment or locate acceptable housing for the people who would otherwise be without a roof over their heads, Sako told the agency he contacted government authorities.
After his visit, Sako made a statement pleading with the relevant government officials to extend the deadline for the expulsion.
Additionally, he requested assistance from the government in locating a location to accommodate such a large population.
For these family, for whom it is hard to locate replacement accommodation so soon, Sako wrote: “We implore renowned leaders to look into this urgent humanitarian matter and provide a helping hand to these families. These families have received the most assistance from the Church. This is a humanitarian crisis involving families from Iraq.
According to a directive from government organizations, the Baghdad facility, which has the name of the Virgin Mary, is situated on state-owned land and will be removed by the end of this year.
The complex has housed 120 families, or around 400 people, over the course of many years, including displaced Christians and low-income families after their localities were devastated during the time that ISIS had power.
The Virgin Mary compound in Baghdad has already received an order to evacuate.
The Baghdad Operations Command gave the go-ahead to evict the complex’s occupants in 2020.
The Ministry of Migration and Displacement was pressured by hundreds of Christians to overturn a decision that would have shut down the complex and dispersed scores of already-displaced families around the neighborhood.
One of the displaced women living in the complex, Suhaila Abdel Karim, said: “We fled the Nineveh Plain for the Qaraqosh region, then traveled to the Dohuk Governorate, and finally arrived in Baghdad in 2014. Right now, our future is uncertain.
One of the students living in the complex, Mary Osama, said: “I left the Hamdaniyah neighborhood and traveled to Baghdad. We relocated here due to the resources offered once the Virgin Mary complex opened for the displaced, particularly since schools are near by.
In a statement to ACI MENA, Bishop Yaldo said that the Church is now setting up facilities in a number of churches around Baghdad to host the Christians who reside in this complex.
The Church is making every effort to halt the removal of the families who were uprooted from various locations in the Nineveh Plain. Additionally, there are non-displaced Christian families living in the complex who lack the funds to rent homes.
The Christians who reside in the complex, according to Yaldo, are members of a variety of Christian denominations, including Chaldeans, Syriac Catholics, Syriac Orthodox, Assyrians, and others.