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QAMISHLI, Syria – Turkey’s offensive in northeast Syria has further undermined Qamishli’s already fragile Christian population.
Already dwindling following the war with the Islamic State (ISIS), Qamishli’s Christian community was again forced to flee as Turkish-backed Syrian militias threatened to overrun the city.
The first Turkish shells to strike the Kurdish-majority city fell on Fadi Hapsono’s house. He and his wife were injured in the blast.
“I was closing my shop. My poor wife went to close [our house] door and to switch on the electricity at the fuse box. Two shells fell on our house,” said Hapsono, a member of Qamishli’s Syriac minority, from his hospital bed.
His wife cries in pain and anguish on the neighboring bed, beneath a portrait of Jesus Christ.
Another wounded man in the hospital has lost his strength and is unable to even open his eyes. Hanna Sawmi, who is well-known among the city’s Christian, speaks on his behalf.
“He is Syriac. His name is Dany from Birke. The sheep of both shepherds – him and his Kurdish friend – were bombed by Erdogan’s missiles in Birke. His Kurdish friend died on the spot. He was injured and was brought to Qamishli. He underwent a three-hour operation,” Sawmi said.
With Turkish-backed militias threatening to enter the city, Sawmi believes any remaining Christians will not be spared.
Having lost hope in the US government, he pleads for help from the American people.
“You people of America: Christianity is in danger. If Christianity dies in the east, then Christianity will die as a whole because we the Syriac speak the language of Jesus. The Syriac language is the Aramaic language. If we are gone, there won’t be Christians left,” he warned.
“The Christian countryside and villages have all been deserted. Erdogan has left nothing. He has hit water, electricity, civilians. There is not even a breath of life left. Even the air we breathe in is gun powder.”
His 16-year-old daughter Maryam recalls the terrifying sound of shelling, but she is determined to remain in Qamishli.
“The shelling took place at night. We were at home, sitting with my friends who were over at our place,” she said.
“When the shelling took place, we were scared, and all of my friends each went back to their home. Since then, we haven’t gone out of the house. We were scared, and we haven’t gone out from our houses. If we leave the country, then who will take care of it?”
The war with ISIS pushed all but 50,000 Christians out of Qamishli, according to SDF estimates. The recent Turkish shelling drove another third of them out of the town where they have lived for centuries.
The US had regularly pledged to protect religious minorities in the Middle East, particularly Iraq and Syria’s Christian minorities.
However, US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of US forces from the Syria-Turkey border areas, which greenlighted Erdogan’s offensive, have left these minorities living under the Kurdish administration’s protection vulnerable to attack.
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