Cards From Throughout Iraq Bring Xmas Cheer To Christians

It was not Santa on a sleigh, but it was shut: just just before dusk on Christmas Eve, a busload of volunteers pulled into the Iraqi Christian city of Qaraqosh to produce holiday break pleasure.

Below a pinkish sky, they disembarked from their charter bus with cardboard boxes full of Xmas playing cards, bearing hand-penned messages from throughout Muslim-greater part Iraq.

A fishmonger writes his Christmas concept at his stall in Basra port Photo: AFP / Hussein FALEH

“A special greeting to our Christian brothers,” read 1 card, signed in the overwhelmingly Muslim southern port town of Basra the former working day.

On foot, users of Iraq’s Tahawer (Dialogue) initiative and other volunteers shipped some 1,400 playing cards across the northern city, which was ravaged by jihadist rule immediately after the Islamic Condition team advanced east throughout the Nineveh Plains in 2014.

Christmas playing cards with hand-prepared greetings from throughout generally Muslim Iraq carry pleasure to Christians in the northern town of Qaraqosh, in which the minority local community is even now rebuilding immediately after the ravages of jihadist rule Photograph: AFP / Zaid AL-OBEIDI

“It can be a gorgeous initiative,” mentioned Rand Khaled, after obtaining a Xmas card outdoors the Syriac Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception in Qaraqosh.

She was dressed in her Xmas Eve best, with a chic chocolate-coloured coat shielding her from the cold.

“We will need initiatives like this each individual when in a though, for the reason that individuals who you should not know these places definitely must get to know them,” Khaled informed AFP.

Professional medical pupils in Basra ended up among the people who despatched Xmas messages to Qaraqosh’s Christians Picture: AFP / Hussein FALEH

Iraq’s Christians amount all around 400,000 right now, down from some 1.5 million just before the US-led invasion toppled longtime dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.

It is a little minority in a country of 40 million folks, most of whom are Shiite Muslims.

A Shiite Muslim cleric also sent his greetings Picture: AFP / Hussein FALEH

The playing cards came from all above Iraq: from the capital Baghdad and the Shiite shrine metropolis of Najaf, from largely Sunni Arab Salahaddin province in the west and the Kurdish town of Dohuk in the much north.

The playing cards bear photos emblematic of the province from which they were being despatched — this just one from the port metropolis of Basra shows Santa and his reindeers flying in excess of the city’s new bridge across the Shatt al-Arab waterway Picture: AFP / Hussein FALEH

They ended up packed into dozens of packing containers and transported up to 950 kilometres (600 miles) via military checkpoints prior to achieving Qaraqosh.

“I never know how to describe it,” reported Nishwan Mohammad, Tahawer’s programme supervisor.

“Persons ended up ecstatic — they in no way expected somebody to appear check out them, much a lot less carry them letters from all in excess of Iraq,” he informed AFP.

In addition to the handwritten messages, just about every card bore a unique hand-drawn symbol of the province from which it was sent.

These from Basra — signed by sheikhs, college pupils and even fishmongers — highlighted the port city’s emblematic new bridge across the Shatt al-Arab waterway with Santa and his reindeer traveling overhead.

Those people from Baghdad showed section of the capital’s a great deal loved Tahrir (Liberty) Monument.

And the playing cards from Salahaddin bore an picture of the spiralled Terrific Mosque of Samarra, which was designed to glance like the historic Mesopotamian ziggurat — but also about resembles a Christmas tree.

Pharmacists, tailors, a linen store proprietor and a cellphone salesman were amongst the signatories there.

Due to the fact the jihadists of IS were being pushed out of Qaraqosh in 2016, the city has slowly but surely began to rebuild many thanks to funding by global organisations and its residents’ very own personal savings.

It sees few guests, having said that, which is why the Xmas Eve shipping and delivery was so exclusive.

“Immediately after the war that took area in this province, there was a type of estrangement among the distinct communities,” said Imad al-Sayer, an activist from the close by town of Mosul who aided distribute the playing cards.

“We are getting the initiative. God keen, these letters will be constructive messages that provide positive changes to the communities of this province.”