Sadr-led committee returns at least 200 occupied properties to their Christian owners

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A decree issued by Muqtada al-Sadr earlier this year has so far seen a large number of Christians reclaim the ownership of their properties confiscated by armed groups in the Iraqi capital city Baghdad and other provinces, numbering up to 200 reported confiscations.

The return of properties to their rightful owners includes houses, agricultural land, factories, and shops in Baghdad, Nineveh, Basra, and Kirkuk.

A committee established by Sadr started work in June 2022 with close associates and officials to Sadr involved in resolving the issue that had gripped Christians and other minority groups since 2003.

The committee has so far been able to restore 200 properties to their owners, according to Saed Muhannad Musawi, a member of the Sadr-led committee to return confiscated properties to their Christians owners.

"There are some other properties that we are working to restore to their owners. This initiative has brought happiness to the components including Christians, and Sabians. Today we can notice that justice has been done to them. Some of these families had been asking the government for 15 years, some others for 20 years to restore their properties for them, but they had not obtained any answer,"  Musawi added.

One of those who managed to go back to his house for the first time in six years was Manaf Hanna whose house in Baghdad had been occupied in 2016 by armed men.

"In 2016, a number of people came to our estate and wrote on the front wall 'this property has sectarian conflict issues' and soon later they occupied it,"  Hanna, told Rudaw on Thursday.

He added that despite numerous efforts to visit all Iraqi relevant authorities, they failed in all of their efforts to reclaim the ownership of their occupied house. He is now thankful for the influential Shiite leader Sadr.

"We reached out everywhere to restore the ownership of our estate and return home, but they were all too futile. Thanks be to God, under the leadership of Muqtada al-Sadr, my problem was solved today and I returned home," he added.

Though Sadr does not hold any government power, he is one of the key Shiite leaders across the Iraqi political spectrum.

Iraq’s Christian community has been devastated in the past two decades. Following the US-led invasion in 2003, sectarian warfare prompted followers of Iraq’s multiple Christian denominations to flee, and attacks by ISIS in 2014 hit minority communities especially hard.

There is not yet concrete data about the number of properties owned by Christians and occupied by militia armed men.

Many Christians who fled Iraq after 2003 fearing threats of persecution, left behind their homes. Many of them when they returned, they found out that they had been occupied by militiamen and sold using fabricated deeds.

Fewer than 300,000 Christians remain in Iraq today, but not all live in a permanent place they can call home.