Alqosh Sub-district
Alqosh sub-district is an administrative unit located in the Nineveh Plain. 42 villages belong to it, in addition to the district center, which also holds the name of Alqosh.
Alqosh sub-district was formed as an administrative unit in 1918 and it is among the first administrative units of modern Iraq formed after WWI. Since then, it was one of the sub-districts that constituted the district of Shikhan, but in 1970, after the transformation of Telkeif sub-district into a district, Alqosh was linked as a sub-district, in addition to the sub-district of Wana, within the Telkeif district, which it has become administratively affiliated with since 1970.
Telkeif district is one of the three districts, in addition to Hamdaniya and Sheikhan, which together constitute what we call the Nineveh Plain, which is rich in its diversity and variety.
The villages of Alqosh district vary in terms of their size, area, and population, from small villages with a population of no more than 200 people (40 families) to medium villages and, to large villages, where the Yazidi village of Khatara is one of the largest villages in the Nineveh Plain and has a population of about 10,000 people. Bigger than the center of Alqosh’s district.
Area: 476 km²
Population: 64,531 according to 2014 estimates
Geographical location and administrative borders: Alqosh sub-district is located in the northern part of the Nineveh Plain, and its administrative borders are the center of Telkeif district in the south, Baadrah sub-district in the east, Faida sub-district in the north and west.
Demographics: The demographics of Alqosh are characterized by ethno-religious diversity, which makes it rich in its cultural and societal diversity.
In terms of religious diversity, there are Muslims, Christians, and Yezidis. The Muslims are all Sunnis, and Christians, the majority of them are Chaldean Catholics in addition to the Assyrian Church of the East.
In terms of ethnic and cultural diversity, there are the Kurds who speak Kurdish, the Chaldeans and Assyrians who speak Syriac, and a few Arab villages.
Yezidis constitute 80% of the population of Alqosh district, while Christians make up 11% and Muslims make up 9%.
Economic Resources:
Alqosh district, like the rest of the Nineveh Plains, was one of the areas neglected by the former Iraqi regime, the Baath regime, in terms of economic development, service programs, and infrastructure.
This neglect is because the regime was adopting an Arab nationalist and Islamic religious ideology, and because the Nineveh Plain is the only region in Iraq in which neither Arabs nor Muslims constitutes the majority, as none of the religious, ethnic, and cultural components in the Nineveh Plain is a majority, all of them are in the language of relative residences are minorities.
For example, for this neglect, there was no lounge or maternity hall in any of the health institutions in all of Alqosh sub-district and Telkaif district, which forced families to go to Mosul (50 km) for emergency delivery, which poses risks to the life of the mother and the child.
From here, the economic resources and livelihoods regarding the people of Alqosh district were limited to the traditional cultivation of seasonal crops, wheat, barley, legumes, which don’t need irrigation because the sources of irrigation water are not available (except for Bendwai area near Alqosh), in addition to raising livestock, especially sheep.
Among the crops, there were and still are (home food production), or medium sizes for the production of groats, bulgur, tahini, cheese, and others.
As for the private sector, it was limited to small shops that provide the daily needs of shopping, household and service materials, and others.
In parallel with the private sector, one of the important economic resources in Alqosh sub-district is the public sector and the job opportunities it provides in various sectors and departments of the state including educational staff for schools, health departments, electricity, water, police, and others.
In return for this neglect, the Alqosh district possesses rich potential sources for the economy and livelihoods, including tourism, especially religious ones. The city of Alqosh embraces one of the oldest Christian monasteries in Iraq, Raban Hurmiz Monastery, in addition to one of the tomb of Old Tastement prophet, Nahum, whose shrine and the Jewish synigouge are still standing in Alqosh.
As well as Assyrian archaeological sites such as Shiro Maliktha and others.
In addition to family tourism in Bandaway, where the water and the pleasant atmosphere.
Trade can also be an important source because the main transport line for commercial materials between Turkey and Iraq passes in Alqosh district towards Erbil or Mosul.
In addition to the possibilities available for the development of agriculture and livestock, and the construction and marketing of food products factories.
Alqosh sub-district in recent decades
Before 2003
In addition to the marginalization experienced by the Nineveh Plain, including the Alqosh sub-district, due to the policies of the regime that we mentioned above, the Nineveh Plain, as well as the whole of Iraq, has suffered from the great humanitarian consequences of the international embargo imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War, where the basic, already weak, health services, educational and other services collapsed.
With the continuation of the embargo and the lack of prospect for positive change at the time, very large numbers of families in Alqosh district, especially Christians, migrated to neighbouring countries and from there to the countries of the diaspora in Europe, America, Canada, and Australia, which lost the Christian community large human resources in quantity and quality.
Between 2003 and 2014
With the fall of the previous regime in April 2003 and chaos that prevailed in Iraq and the systematic campaign of terrorism and organized crime gangs that targeted non-Muslim minorities, Christians, Yazidis, and Mandaeans, in central and southern Iraq, in return for the security stability of the areas that were under the administration of the Kurdistan region, including the Nineveh Plain, where despite Its official administrative subordination to the central government, but its security and military administration was under the administration of Kurdistan regional government and its security and military institutions. The Nineveh Plain turned into a safe haven for thousands of Christian and Yazidi families who were forced to flee from their cities, leaving their sources of living and resorting to the Nineveh Plain in search of security, peace, and stability.
Alqosh sub-district, with its center being the city of Alqosh and all its affiliated towns and villages (especially the Christian ones (Telesquf, Baqufa, Sharafiya, Bendawaya, etc..) and the Yazidis (Khatara, Buzan, Biban, etc..) hosted those families. Many of them settled and integrated and many others moved to other places in Kurdistan or neighbouring countries.
At the time when Alqosh sub-district provided a haven for the displaced, the IDPs imposed additional burdens on the existing infrastructure and services from sources of drinking water, electricity, health facilities, schools, and others… especially with the failure of the central government in Baghdad to provide support and development programs for the region to meet the needs of its people and those displaced to it.
Among the reasons for this, in addition to the lack of planning and corruption in the performance of the Iraqi government, there is also the fact that the Nineveh Plain, including the Alqosh sub-district, is one of the disputed areas between the Iraqi federal government and Kurdistan regional government, making it an area that struggles with influence and dual administration, and that these areas are subject to the provisions of Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution.
The Stage Of The Islamic State ISIS
In June 2014, ISIS took control of the city of Mosul, the center of Nineveh Governorate, forcing the Christians of the city of Mosul (more than 25,000) to leave and flee to the Nineveh Plain and the Kurdistan Region for safety.
It is worth mentioning here that thousands of other Christians had gradually left the city of Mosul between 2003 and 2014 due to terrorist acts and organized crime against them in the city of Mosul by jihadist organizations, including Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and others, which were present and visible in Mosul even before ISIS took control of it.
Also, the Yazidis gradually left Mosul for the same reasons after 2003, and there were only very few Yazidi families left in Mosul when ISIS entered it. These families also fled towards the Nineveh Plain and Dohuk Governorate.
On August 3, 2014, ISIS attacked Sinjar district, which is overwhelmingly demographically and with Yezidi presence, and committed heinous crimes of genocide against the Yezidi community in Sinjar.
The attack on Sinjar was a wake-up call to the Nineveh Plain.
Indeed, ISIS attacked the Nineveh Plain, starting with Telkeif towards the north, where its advance was stopped at the borders of Baqufa and Telesquf by the Kurdistan Peshmerga forces and the support of the International Coalition forces, and Bartilla towards the west, where their advance was stopped at the Khazer River in the west and Al-Nuran in the north. Thus, the largest area of the Nineveh Plain (including the city of Qaraqosh and the districts of Bartilla, Bashiqa, Nimrud, and others) became under the control of ISIS.
This made the people of these cities and villages to leave them and flee in a mass exodus to the Kurdistan region (specifically Duhok governorate in the north and Erbil in the east).
For example, the number of Christians displaced from Mosul and the Nineveh Plains because of ISIS has reached 120,000 Christians.
Although the center of Alqosh sub-district and the villages affiliated with it were not reached by ISIS, the threat and terror of ISIS prompted the residents of the entire Alqosh sub-district (including the center of the district) to flee Kurdistan.
With the stability of the front line between ISIS and the Peshmerga and the end of ISIS’s possibility of progress, the people of Alqosh and its villages returned to their villages and houses and even hosted large numbers of families from the city of Mosul and others that were under ISIS control.
While the people of the villages close to the front line (Telesquf and Baqufa for example) could not return, as they were within the range of the bombing, so they remained displaced in Duhok, Erbil, Alqosh, and others, and they did not return to their villages until after the restoration of control over the Nineveh Plain and the city of Mosul at the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017.
Also in this period, the displaced have imposed additional burdens on resources, infrastructure, and service facilities, without the federal government providing anything that eases the burdens of life on the displaced families and government facilities.
On the contrary, it was the role of the Kurdistan Regional Government and the international ecclesiastical and humanitarian organizations that provided support and humanitarian assistance to the displaced.
Alqosh Sub-district After ISIS
With the restoration of control over the areas that were under ISIS, the gradual return of the displaced to their cities and villages began.
It is a return that wasn’t and still is not easy in terms of the requirements of returning and rebuilding life at the level of the family, society, administration, and services.
In the Alqosh sub-district, in addition to the continuous efforts of humanitarian organizations to assist the displaced and the returnees, it is possible to mention two important cases in helping the area and giving hope and reconstruction:
The first of these is the Hungarian government’s initiative to allocate considerable sums (according to the information exceeding two million euros) to rehabilitate the city of Telesquf.
Second, the continuous efforts of the Alqosh sub-district directorate, in the person of the sub-district mayor, Mrs. Lara Zara, to attract support from international institutions (such as USAID) and government allocations to rehabilitate the sub-districts infrastructure and implement many programs.
Current And Future Challenges
Alqosh sub-district, like all of Iraq, is experiencing manifold, complex and dangerous challenges related to its entity as a state, and the system and institutions of this state, with all the consequences that this implies for the situation of its citizens.
The sectarian conflict in Iraq is not limited to the political struggle between the political parties of these sects and between the influential parties and forces within the same sect but extends to a struggle for influence over the state, its resources, and institutions.
Iraq’s transformation into a battleground for regional hubs and major powers threatens Iraq’s stability not only in the immediate but also in the long term.
Political and security instability opens the door to the return of terrorist organizations or the birth of new terrorist organizations that exploit the weakness of the state and the dispersal of decision-making, management, and control decision making centres.
Just as it made Iraq unable to prevent the military interventions of its neighbouring countries, especially Turkey, as well as the interventions and presence of cross-border military forces such as the Kurdistan Workers Party PKK and jihadist organizations, and others.
The corruption that is protected by the deep state of the big parties and the accumulated corruption that enters all the facilities of the Iraqi state and affects the daily life of individuals, families, and society wasted huge financial resources and lost opportunities for economic development of Iraq.
If the above and other challenges are general to all Iraqi regions, the Nineveh Plain, including the Alqosh sub-district, faces other additional challenges, perhaps the most important of which is the return and the current and future administrative authority on it.
As we mentioned earlier, the Nineveh Plain is one of the disputed areas between the federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Thus, it is an area of political conflict and at some point (after ISIS and with the Kurdistan independence referendum in 2017) turned into a military conflict that led to the division into two regions, one of which is subject to the federal security and military administration, and the other to the security and military administration of the Kurdistan region, with an open question in the possibility of the security line separating the two areas might transform into an administrative line that will realistically apply Article 140 and resolve the ownership of the two Nineveh Plain areas.
Alqosh sub-district falls under the security and military administration of the Kurdistan Region, and thus it is likely to be under the annexation and administrative subordination of the Kurdistan Region, Dohuk Governorate specifically, in the event of the scenario of dividing the plain administratively as it is divided security.
The continuation of this duality and this current administrative overlap in the Nineveh Plain and the Alqosh sub-district leads to the instability of the structure and administrative performance of government departments and service facilities, as it leads to the failure to adopt a clear governmental economic development support plan in terms of size and implementation mechanism.
Another critical issue concerns property disputes. The Property Claims Commission was established in 2004 to compensate those whose property was confiscated before 2003. But it was clear from the collected data that this commission was not very active in solving property issues. Moreover, demographic changes are one of the crucial issues for minorities in Nineveh Plain, especially among Christians community, because they believe this will lead to the extinction of Christianity in Iraq.
CAPNI team conducted a rapid assessment in Alqush area we found that Alqush has excluded in many levels from the support of the federal government in Baghdad because the sub-district practically under KRG control and there is poor coordination between the two authorities’ (i.e., Iraq federal government and KRG) due to political reasons, as result of that, Alqush suffers from this political tension.
Another challenge that Alqosh sub-district is facing, or may face in the future, is the balance between representing religious diversity in the administration of the sub-district.
On the one hand, the center of the district, which is the town of Alqosh, is a town that is all Christians, while the residents of the district are in the majority (80%) Yezidis, the mayor is Christian, while the majority of the inhabitants of the sub-district council are Yezidis.
At present, there is no apparent problem or conflict, but the possibility of demanding Yezidi representation in the administration of the district is a possibility in the future and it must be noted that it does not affect the historically existing peaceful coexistence between Christians and Yezidis.
The biggest challenge for the Christian presence in the Alqosh district, as in the rest of the regions, is the migration flow.
The period of ISIS control over the city of Mosul, the Nineveh Plain, and the rest of the Iraqi regions was marked by a very large increase in the migration of Christian and Yazidi families to neighbouring countries and from there to the diaspora, where the Christian community lost thousands of families that migrated during ISIS control and the phenomenon continued until after ISIS and didn’t stop except with the outbreak Corona epidemic.
There are many reasons for migration to include a package of expulsive and attractive factors.
And if the political and security instability in Iraq, external interference and political and perhaps military conflicts between the Iraqi forces, and other factors that do not give positive indications to a stable and prosperous future that achieve the right of person and family to a decent life are among the expelling factors mentioned above; it is added to it the continuity and the increase in the manifestations and methods of religious discrimination, the Islamization of community life, and the Islamization of the state, all of which are factors that expel non-Muslim minorities from Christians, Mandaeans, and Yazidis until their future existence in their motherland is threatened.
The presence of the Iraqi Christian diaspora for more than a century in Europe, America, and Australia, and its stability and growth, is one of the attractive factors.
It is a well-known fact that the number of members of the extended Christian family (brothers, uncles, cousins) settled in the diaspora is more than the members of the same family in Iraq, and thus many consider immigration as family reunification.
CAPNI and Alqosh Sub-district
With the change of the regime in Baghdad in 2003, the opportunity for the first time was provided for CAPNI to work outside the Kurdistan region, as its work was limited to Kurdistan since its establishment in 1993 to 2003 when it launched and committed itself to wide, diverse and large work programs in the Nineveh Plain, and the Alqosh sub-district in particular.
In addition to the humanitarian support programs for the displaced from the rest of Iraq to the plain, where they were provided as humanitarian aid of food, household supplies, health care, and others, the organization’s programs focused on other aspects, especially job opportunities in terms of organizing vocational training, providing grants and loans for youth to work, and supporting farmers in agricultural and livestock fields (seeds, fertilizers, tractors, sheep, greenhouses, apiaries, etc.), and other economic programs.
The programs also included the rehabilitation and development of the infrastructure of the water networks in Sharafiyah, Alqosh, Karango, Perozawa, Garmawa, and others, as well as electricity networks and generators.
On the ecclesiastical side and Eastern Christianity, the organization annually supported ecclesiastical pastoral and educational programs for various churches and parishes, such as building a church and a community hall in Karango, and an ecclesiastical semenary in Sharafiyah, as well as establishing the only Christian printing press in Iraq, the Nasibin Press, in Sharafiyah, and other ecclesiastical programs.
In the educational field, the organization launched student service centers in Telesquf and Batnaya, in which it provided space to organize remedial courses, reading rooms, photocopying devices, and other facilities that students need in their studies, in addition to furnishing and equipping kindergartens and schools with their needs.
In the health field, CAPNI launched the mobile clinic program, which is still ongoing and serves villages that lack medical services.
CAPNI helped the people of Bandawayi village to return to their village in 2004 and restore life to it.
And many other programs, as it was the most active organization in Nineveh Plain and Alqosh sub-district, and the most committed.
Hence, this project is a continuation of CAPNI projects in the Nineveh Plain in general, and the Alqosh sub-district in particular.
The project and its role in facing these challenges:
After almost four years of retaken operations, led by Iraqi forces, Peshmerga and supported by international coalition forces, a good number of families have been returned back to their places of origin in Alqush.
Despite that fact, the majority of families including those returned back and other still waiting in displaced areas, are facing many difficulties and challenges, including political, security and economic concerns. Based on that the proposed project is designed to contribute supporting targeted groups to face such challenges and reduce the emigration trends among them to abroad and especially to European countries.
The project that CAPNI presents to its donor partners aims in its sectors and activities to deal with these challenges through economic programs not only in improving livelihoods and opportunities but also at promoting community coexistence among religious components.
It also includes ecumenical pastoral programs aimed at strengthening the bonds between Christian youth from different churches, in a way that enhances the youth’s confidence in themselves and their strength, and thus in their opportunities and prospects, as they are part of an inclusive church and ecclesiastical youth that transcend the boundaries of regional geography or individual church identities.
While educational programming activities are directed at encouraging children to learn and develop the skills and talents they have, in a way that enhances their self-confidence and future aspirations.
