Plans for a university and a hospital in northern Iraq are intended
as “symbols of hope” enabling Christians to build a future away from the
violence and intimidation that have caused so many to flee the country.
The
two initiatives planned for Ankawa, a suburb of the Kurdish capital,
Erbil, passed a crucial hurdle today when the regional government
guaranteed a gift of two pieces of land on which to build both
structures.
The 30,000-square-metre site allocated for the
university is close to an 8,000-square-metre plot set aside for the
100-bed hospital complete with eight operating theatres and a medical
wing.
Announcing the plans to Catholic charity Aid to the Church
in Need, Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil said both schemes would
provide jobs, training and other opportunities for thousands of
Christians flooding into the relative security of Kurdistan, away from
the religious violence, especially in Baghdad and Mosul.
Speaking
after a committee of faithful and clergy met to advance the schemes,
Archbishop Warda said: “The plans we have been developing over the past
few months are symbols of hope for the Christian presence in our
country.”
He went on to explain how both initiatives emerged in
response to a growing realisation that the influx of Christians into the
area included many highly skilled professionals with expertise in
education and medicine.
Speaking from Erbil, Archbishop Warda told
ACN: “The people arriving here from places of violence are receiving
the gift of relative security.
“They themselves are willing to
offer the gift of their services in a region which cannot cope with the
demands of an increasing population.”
Although both the hospital
and the university will be Church-run and owned by the Archdiocese of
Erbil, Archbishop Warda stressed that both would open their doors to all
people irrespective of religious and political differences.
Archbishop Warda said that before building work could begin, a fundraising campaign was necessary.
He said he hoped governments in the West as well as charities and other NGOs would be generous.
The
archbishop also said he hoped to receive advice and support for similar
schemes elsewhere in the Middle East such as the Holy Spirit University
of Kaslik, in Lebanon, founded by Maronite Catholics in 1961.
He added that if the plans went to schedule the two institutions could open within two years.
The
archbishop went on to stress that a key factor behind both projects was
to provide jobs and other opportunities thereby discouraging the
Christian exodus from a country whose faithful have plummeted from more
than 800,000 to barely 200,000 within a decade.
He said: “We do
not want Christians to leave Iraq. It is clear that our society here
needs schools, universities and hospitals and this provides us with an
opportunity to encourage the Christians to build a future for themselves
here.”
Successive waves of killings, kidnappings and other
violence have forced vast numbers of Christians to flee Baghdad and
Mosul, seeking sanctuary especially in the north under the control of
the Kurdish Regional Government, which is now one of the only parts of
Iraq largely untouched by violence against minorities.
The latest
wave of new arrivals came after the October 31 2010 massacre in
Baghdad’s Syrian Catholic Cathedral where 58 people died and more than
70 were injured.
Archbishop Warda said Christians coming into his diocese included 2,000 from as far away as Basra in the south.