ICC Note: World Watch Monitor has outlined the six steps of becoming an internally displaced person. Most of the fleeing Christian families in ISIS territories settled in parts of Iraq and Kurdistan. Since they did not flee their own country, they are no refugees but rather internally displaced. Two years later, many are still displaced while others are daring to return to liberated towns in the Nineveh plains.

11/12/2016 Iraq (WWM): Tens of thousands of Christian families were chased from their homes in north-eastern Iraq when Islamic State jihadists invaded the Nineveh plain in summer 2014. At first they expected to return within a few days. But the days became weeks, the weeks months, and the months years.

WWM traces six ‘steps’ or ‘stages’ from the initial flight to their hoped-for return with the anticipated “liberation” of the plain this autumn, and show how Mar Elia Church compound in Erbil has transformed since first receiving those rendered homeless overnight. Every stage has carried hopes of more stable living conditions.

Technically a ‘refugee’ is someone who has crossed the border of their country, so these Christians are ‘internally displaced people (IDPs).

Step 1 – On the run　(June 2014)

When IS took over Mosul, numerous Iraqis took up the few　belongings they could carry and left. Minorities – Yazidis, Shabak and Christians – were given the choice: leave, convert to Islam or die by the sword. (Yazidis have especially paid a high price, with thousands of them raped, kidnapped or killed).

The caliphate of the Islamic State was proclaimed in Mosul. In the weeks following, the Nineveh plain region around Mosul, with its high concentration of Christians, was swiftly taken by IS. As over 120,000 Christians fled, many were robbed of all they had.

Most fled to nearby Kurdish cities and that’s how many reached the Kurdish capital, Erbil. People were sleeping in streets, parks and unfinished shopping malls on bare concrete floors. “The suffering we see is unbelievable here and it makes me cry every time,” an eye-witness said. “I see the desperate faces of the old men and the mothers that come to collect their food and I feel so sorry for them”.

Step 2 – Make-shift tents (August 2014)

Local churches played a key role in offering the first help. They dug deep into their resources to house as many displaced Christians as they could. Pastors, priests and nuns sacrificed all they could share to help people. The same was true for the shrine of Mar Elia.

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