The Demographic Change Haunts Minorities in the Nineveh Plain

Since Imad Zuhair (a pseudonym, 47 years old) returned to Qaraqosh, the center of the Hamdaniya district in the Nineveh Plain, after it was liberated from ISIS in late 2016, he has not stopped thinking about leaving the country as soon as he finds a suitable opportunity for himself and his small family, a wife and two daughters (9 and 11 years old).

Like thousands of others, he was forced to flee to Erbil on August 7, 2014, after ISIS militants took control of the area and gave the residents two options: either pay the poultry farm (a tax) and submit to the Islamic State, or leave with only the clothes on their backs.

He left behind his job at a poultry farm, his house with all its contents, and even his savings and his wife’s jewelry, none of which he found when he returned in early 2017, a few weeks after his town was liberated, east of Mosul (405 km north of Baghdad). His house was nearly destroyed.

e says in a sharp voice that his town will never return to its former life and that he does not feel safe. What happened in August 2014 “never leaves his mind,” pointing to his lack of trust in the security forces or in any group that presents itself as a protector of Christians: “Everyone fled and left us at the hands of ISIS.”

He adds something else to a long list of concerns: “The Peshmerga forces were here, then replaced by the Popular Mobilization Forces, and today they are the ones giving orders in our area. They have the final word and control everything. I even feel like a stranger in the land of my ancestors.”

Not only that, but the lack of job opportunities in the area, the deterioration of services in all forms, the lack of infrastructure, the absence of Christian representation in the local government in Nineveh, and political conflicts, all push him towards migration.

“The church fears that with our departure, the historical Christian presence in the Nineveh Plain will end,” he says, raising his voice as if imitating someone else, then he asks, “And what about my existence as a person who doesn’t have the most basic rights and services?”

He pauses for a moment and then continues, protesting: “I have been working as a taxi driver for years to save enough money to leave here with my family, never to return. At least, I will secure my daughter’s future somewhere else, and we will live away from wars and armed groups that kill in the name of religion or sect.”

Imad is among the 40% of Christians who returned to the Nineveh Plain after being displaced to the Kurdistan Region and other parts of Iraq. Meanwhile, 60% are still displaced or have migrated abroad, according to informed sources, most notably Louis Raphael Sako, the Patriarch of the Chaldeans in Iraq.

Even among the 40% who have returned, some have once again turned toward displacement or migration shortly after their return, contributing to a demographic shift in the Nineveh Plain. The presence of the Shabak has expanded throughout the plain, while the presence of other minorities (Christians, Yazidis, Kakais, Turkmen, Kurds, and Arabs) has either diminished or declined.

This investigation reveals the changes that have occurred in the Nineveh Plain over the last two decades, the fears of the minorities there, and their loss of trust in both the local government in Nineveh and the central government in Baghdad. There are calls for international intervention to stop what those concerned with this issue describe as the “bleeding of minorities from the Nineveh Plain.”

Nineveh Plain… Demographic Fluctuations

The Nineveh Plain extends from the north to the far east of the city of Mosul, and consists of three districts: Hamdaniya, Shikhan, and Tel Kef. The most prominent towns in this area include Qaraqosh (also known as Baghdida), Bartella, Alqosh, Tel Kef, Bashiqa, Ain Sifni, Tahrawa, Karamles, Telskuf, and Sharfia.

Most of these towns are Christian, making the Nineveh Plain their historical homeland. It is also home to the Shabak, who are spread across more than 60 villages, the most important of which are Bazwaya, Ali Rash, and Kokjali. The Yazidis live in the Bashiqa subdistrict, the village of Bahzani, and the Shikhan district. The Plain also contains scattered villages of the Kakais, with the most prominent being Tel Al-Laban and Zinkal. Additionally, Arabs and Turkmen live alongside other minorities in some villages and towns, such as Bashiqa, Shikhan, and Tel Kef.

Nineveh Plain

The writer and researcher Zainal Ghanem states that the Nineveh Plain is distinguished by its fertile lands, as it lies within what is known as the “rain line,” meaning that rainfall is guaranteed in the area. Therefore, the vast majority of its residents are either farmers or poultry breeders.

Many of the region’s inhabitants moved over several decades, especially in the latter half of the 20th century, to live in the city of Mosul for education in its schools and university, or for work. They were particularly concentrated in the neighborhoods of the left bank of Mosul. However, this reality changed with the rise of armed groups following the fall of the Iraqi regime in April 2003, due to the systematic targeting of “Shia Shabak and Turkmen, Yazidis, Christians, and Kurds.”

As a result, thousands of people from these minorities fled Mosul between mid-2003 and June 2014 and settled in the Nineveh Plain. This led to what could be described as a housing boom in the villages of the Shabak, Christian towns, and Yazidi areas in Sinjar: “The displaced built homes for themselves, or new floors were added to old homes, and new residential clusters and markets emerged in the plain.”

Yaqo Bahnam (57 years old) had a mechanical lathe workshop in the Wadi Aqab Industrial area on the right side of Mosul. At first, he did not take the death threats he received seriously and believed that they were just attempts by competitors to push him to leave his workshop. Recalling those memories, he says: “This was in late 2004. A person entered my workshop and threatened to kill me if I did not leave the workshop and leave Mosul.” But weeks later, bodies began to appear in the streets of Mosul, and news spread of armed groups killing civilians, including Christians, and kidnapping them. “They killed two young Christians who were working at the Nineveh Oberoi Hotel, and kidnapped another from the Dawasa area. I knew that targeting me was only a matter of time, so I took my family with me and moved to Bartella.” Yaqo did not put his house in the Al-Arabi neighborhood on the left side of Mosul up for sale, thinking that his departure from the city was temporary and that he would return when peace came to it. However, the influence of armed groups such as Al-Qaeda and then ISIS worsened, so he decided to stay permanently in Bartella (22 km east of Mosul).

He added: “They wrote in black paint on the wall of my house in Mosul, ‘Not for sale, not for rent, the house is ready to be blown up’, even though the Iraqi army forces were deployed in the city. After ISIS took control of it in 2014, they wrote on the wall of my house in red the letter -CH- meaning Christian, and the phrase, ‘Not for sale, not for rent, the house belongs to the Islamic State!’” But in the summer of 2014, Yaqoub had to leave the new house he had built in Bartella and move with his family again, this time to Erbil Governorate in the Kurdistan Region, after the organization attacked and took control of the Nineveh Plain on the night of August 6-7 of that year.

Days before, the organization had launched its bloody attack on Sinjar district, forcing Christians, Yazidis, Shabaks, and Shiite Turkmen in the Nineveh Plain to flee, including hundreds of families who had previously been displaced from Mosul.

Hundreds of Shia Shabak had joined a formation within the PMF known as Brigade 30. At its inception in 2014, it included more than 1,500 Shia Shabak fighters, led by Shabak MP Hanen Qado (who passed away in Germany on Sunday, December 13, 2020, due to a prolonged illness).

His brother, Wadi Qado (who holds German citizenship), replaced him. In July 2019, the U.S. Department of the Treasury blacklisted Wadi Qado along with three other Iraqi figures, imposing sanctions on him after accusing him of involvement in human rights violations, including the suppression of minorities in the Nineveh Plain.

Before this, specifically in November 2017, the Popular Mobilization Forces took control of the Nineveh Plain areas, replacing the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, which withdrew to the Kurdistan Region. This signaled what could be seen as the end of the areas considered “disputed territories” under Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution.

Minority distribution path

To understand the reasons behind the conflict over the Nineveh Plain and the concerns of minorities about their future presence there, researcher and writer Adel Kamal explains that the root of the conflict began with the declaration of the Iraqi constitution in 2005.

At that time, the Peshmerga forces had established full control over the Nineveh Plain, considering it a disputed area between the Kurdistan Region and the central government, according to Article 140 of the constitution. This article was originally designed to address the issue of Kirkuk province and what are known as the “disputed areas,” which, in addition to the Nineveh Plain, also include the Sinjar district and areas in Diyala and Salahuddin

This article outlined a three-phase process: the first phase was normalization, aimed at addressing the changes in the demographic makeup of Kirkuk and the disputed areas during the rule of the previous Iraqi regime (1968-2003), which pursued a policy of Arabizing Kurdish areas. The second phase involved conducting a population census in those areas, and the third phase called for a referendum to determine the desires of the inhabitants.

Several committees were formed to implement the provisions of this article, which sparked prolonged debate, the latest of which was in August 2011, chaired by Hadi al-Amiri, the Minister of Transportation in Maliki’s government. He faced objections and resistance to his leadership of the committee. Some politicians insist that this article no longer exists, as its implementation was supposed to occur in late 2007, which was 17 years ago.

Despite everything, Kurdish authority remained in the Nineveh Plain until June 2014, when it unexpectedly withdrew, along with all Iraqi army formations and local police from the city of Mosul, leaving behind a massive military arsenal and nearly four million people in Nineveh, including the inhabitants of the plain, under the control of ISIS elements.

The Peshmerga forces returned to the plain after it was liberated from ISIS control in late 2016, but they remained for only one year. They were replaced by the Shia Shabak Popular Mobilization Forces, represented by Brigade 30, and the Christian Babylon Brigades, which include fighters from the Shia community, led by Rayan al-Kildani, one of the four individuals who were sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2019.

Returning to the writer Adel Kamal, he outlines the distribution map of minorities in the Nineveh Plain as follows:

Chaldeans are present in the Telkef district, with its most important area being Alqosh, which is considered “the center of the Assyrian Church of the East and later the Chaldean Church.”

Syriac Catholics and Orthodox are found in the Hamdaniya district, in the towns of Qaraqosh and Bartella, and on the slopes of Mount Alfaf, where Mar Mattai Monastery is located, as well as in the Bashiqa subdistrict.

Assyrian Church of the East members are located in the villages of the Telkef and Shikhan districts.

Yazidis are found in the Shikhan district (47 km north of Mosul) in the towns of Ain Sifni, Qasrouk, and Baa’thra, as well as in the Bashiqa subdistrict.

Shia and Sunni Shabak are distributed across 60 villages in six administrative units between the districts of Telkef, Mosul, Hamdaniya, and the subdistricts of Bashiqa and Bartella. The most prominent of these villages include Bazwaya, Ali Rash, Kokjali, Tobzawa, Al-Fadhiliya, and Shirkhan.

Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen are scattered across the districts, subdistricts, and villages within the Nineveh Plain.

Continuous Decline in Their Presence

Louis Marcus Ayoub, an activist and founding member of the Iraqi Minorities Alliance, states that the number of Christians in the Nineveh Plain, as well as in the city of Mosul, was around 200,000 before the ISIS takeover. He adds, “Now, they are much less than half of that number, as about two-thirds of the Christians have either migrated abroad or been displaced to other areas.”

Ayoub believes that the migration and displacement of Christians did not begin as a result of a single event, such as ISIS’s control of Nineveh in the summer of 2014. Instead, it started a decade earlier, “when members of Al-Qaeda targeted them starting in 2004, killing them based on their identity.” This violence escalated with the rise of ISIS in 2006, which targeted Christians with abductions and killings.

Ayoub adds other reasons behind the reluctance of Christians to return from migration or displacement, stating: “There are no laws that protect Christians and grant them the rights of first-class citizens like others,” in the absence of a functioning state. He further explains, “There is discrimination against Christians in granting jobs, and they are not given special positions in the provincial center, such as administrative roles in the governorate headquarters.”

He lists other reasons, such as the fact that only 10% to 15% of those whose property was seized or destroyed by ISIS have been compensated, in addition to ongoing conflicts in the minority areas of the Nineveh Plain between the central government and the Kurdistan Region. “This makes job opportunities in these areas very scarce, which is why many of those who returned after displacement are considering a second displacement to the Kurdistan Region or other areas.”

Shadha Muthanna, an employee at the Ministry of Health from Qaraqosh (Baghdida), believes that the option of emigrating abroad is the closest one for her and her family for many reasons. She says, “We have been displaced more than once, and now we are preparing to emigrate permanently.”

She adds, “The terrorists were the cause every time, but now the unknown is the greatest threat that we fear.” She explains her point of view: “Since we returned to the town, we have felt anxious. We no longer trust our future here. After our last return, we held on to our land and decided to stay until our loved ones were burned in the wedding hall.

Shadha is referring to the fire that broke out in a wedding hall (Ibn Al-Haytham) on September 26, 2023, which led to the deaths of 113 people, all of whom were among the 1,000 Christians attending the wedding. The security authorities confirmed that the incident occurred due to a mistake and the hall’s lack of safety measures, but some Christians suspect the fire was intentionally set.

Shadha and many others lean toward the narrative that they were targeted, and she confirms that she and her family no longer wish to stay: “We don’t know when we will be burned, shot at, or kidnapped, given the state’s weakness.”

Concerns of Other Minorities

The writer and social researcher, Salwan Khalaf, points out the lack of statistical data regarding the number of Yazidis in the Nineveh Plains, despite unofficial estimates indicating that, before 2014, they made up about 85% of the population in the Bashiqa District (20 km east of Mosul), including the village of Bahzani and other surrounding villages. They were also densely concentrated in the Sheikhan District, which contains some of the most important Yazidi religious shrines.

He says that Yazidis in Bashiqa quickly moved to the nearby Kurdistan Region after the ISIS attack on August 7, 2014. “The news about the horrific crimes committed by the organization against Yazidis in Sinjar on August 3, 2014, spread fear throughout the Nineveh Plains. The Yazidis in Bashiqa feared the same fate, and they fled immediately.”

He continues, “Yazidis in the Sheikhan District, whose numbers had already declined over the past decades, were somewhat removed from areas controlled by ISIS and were safe at that time. However, many of them still chose to leave and later emigrated, so the district now has a Yazidi minority of no more than 30%.”

The Concerns of Yazidis and Christians Are Also Felt by the Shabaks, Though to a Lesser Extent

Despite the fears, the Shabaks have maintained a strong demographic presence and were more stable compared to the other components. The social researcher Salwan notes that their numbers in the Nineveh Plains are estimated, according to unofficial sources, to be between 400,000 to 450,000 people, with about 70% of them being Shiite and 30% Sunni. The Shiites “have been a constant target of takfiri groups, especially after the sectarian violence erupted in Iraq between 2006 and 2007. ISIS targeted the Shiite Shabaks in Mosul with killings and abductions, and their villages in the Nineveh Plains with car bombs.”

He points out that the Sunni Shabaks were less targeted because they were supported by the Peshmerga forces. He explains: “The vast majority of Sunni Shabaks, unlike the Shiites, are believed to be of Kurdish origin, such as the Shakkak tribe. Therefore, many of them joined the Kurdistan Democratic Party or became part of the Peshmerga formations, which controlled the Nineveh Plains before 2014. After the Shiite Shabaks gained control of the plain, the Sunni Shabaks no longer held any power or influence.”

Salwan also points out that there are two things that distinguish the Shabaks in general. First, unlike other minorities, they “do not have any presence outside Iraq, nor in other parts of the country except for the Nineveh Plains.” The second is that the Shabaks “do not have a specific town of their own, unlike the Christians (Qaraqosh and Bartella), the Yazidis (Sinyar), and the Turkmens (Tal Afar). They are only concentrated in villages within the Nineveh Plains.”

Since extremism toward minorities in the Nineveh Plains emerged on the basis of religious “ideological beliefs” and was practiced by armed religious groups like Al-Qaeda, Ansar al-Islam, ISIS, and others, this has ended for the time being after the defeat of ISIS in 2017.

However, minorities still face other challenges, some of which are imposed by the ongoing conflict between the Kurdistan Region (Kurds) and the Popular Mobilization Forces (Shiites), as they vie for control over the Nineveh Plains. In addition, there is an administrative conflict among the components of the Nineveh Plains themselves, as well as with the local administration of Mosul, the center of Nineveh Governorate.

Solutions to stop migration

To prevent minorities from leaving the Nineveh Plain and to convince the displaced and immigrants to return, there are conditions set by those interested and concerned with the plain, including Louis Raphael Sako, the Chaldean Patriarch, who emphasizes citizenship as a solution.

He said in a press statement: “We should not talk about the majority and the minority, about Christians, Shiites, Sunnis and Yazidis, but only about citizens,” and he believes that all Iraqis should enjoy the same rights and duties.

To achieve this, he believes that Iraq: “needs a modern, democratic, civil state based on the concept of citizenship.”

As for the Christian activist Louis Marcos Ayoub, he sets a set of conditions that must be implemented in order to stop the migration of minorities from the Nineveh Plain, which are that the central government in Baghdad allocate a reconstruction fund for their areas to compensate them for the property they lost as a result of the ISIS invasion in 2014, and grant the minority quota the right to veto any laws and decisions passed by the House of Representatives that affect their religious, cultural, linguistic and intellectual rights. And that the members of the minorities who are members of the Iraqi army and police take over the security file in their areas, not the Popular Mobilization Forces or forces affiliated with any political party, according to his expression.

Ayoub also calls for justice for the harms suffered by minorities during the era of the former Iraqi regime and after its fall in 2003. This includes the return of properties confiscated from Christians and other groups, particularly lands that were seized for residential purposes but have yet to be used for that purpose. He also advocates for fair compensation for the properties that were confiscated and redistributed to other Iraqi groups.

Additionally, he calls for the implementation of a law to compensate for the shortage of Christian personnel in government positions, ensuring that job opportunities are exclusively reserved for their children, as stipulated by law, so that they can have opportunities in their own country.

He further emphasizes the need for enacting a “Components Law” based on Article (125) of the Iraqi Constitution, which ensures the administrative, political, cultural, and educational rights of various nationalities and components in Iraq, including Turkmens, Chaldeans, Assyrians, and other groups, and that these rights be organized through law.

Political science expert Khairy Faiq emphasizes that the Iraqi government should refrain from supporting one minority over another. He explains: “The Shiite Shabak currently dominate important positions and jobs in the Nineveh Plain, even holding some positions in the city of Mosul, the governorate’s center, due to their support from the Shiite-led central government and the backing of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). Meanwhile, we find no significant presence of the Kakai minority, as they have no representation in any official body because they are not officially recognized.”

Therefore, he believes that such discrimination leads to instability in the Nineveh Plain. He calls for the withdrawal of PMF forces and the assignment of the region’s protection to the army and local police. Faiq further advocates for focusing on building and supporting governmental institutions to provide services to all residents, without exception.

The investigation was completed under the supervision of NIRIJ Network for Investigative Journalism, with support from CFI