Post-2014 Christian Iraqi Refugees: Reconfiguration of Faith-Based Assistance in Jordan
Résumé
In June 2014, when the fighters of the ‘Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant’ swept across Northern Iraq, King Abudallah II of Jordan made statements stressing out the need to protect Middle Eastern Christians and to guarantee their presence in the region. He encouraged them to seek refuge in his country, guaranteeing a simplified procedure for visas and offering them to travel with Royal Jordanian. Following this call, since 2014, hundreds of Christian families settled in Jordan. Churches and faith-based NGOs – especially Caritas - organized welcoming features for these migrants. In 2015, around 10,000 Iraqi Christians belonging to different churches had settled in Jordan out of a total of around 50,000 Iraqi refugees according to UNHCR. Most of them settled in Amman and are registered with UNHCR under the status of “asylum seekers” which mean they could not access to formal work and children could not be registered in Jordanian public schools. They settled in Jordan in a context of both confessionalization of political dynamics in the region and arrival of thousands of Syrian refugees in the country rising major challenges in terms of reception policy for the State. In 2014, the arrival of Iraqi refugees was not a new phenomenon in Jordan, since thousands of Iraqis left their country from the 1990s and the first Gulf wars. Many arrived after 2006 and the sectarian violence that followed the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. In most cases, Jordan was a transit country for these migrants before their resettlement in the United States, Canada, Australia or Europe.
This chapter investigates the policies developed by Christian charities as Caritas and members of the Christian clergy towards Christian Iraqi refugees in Jordan post-2014. It is based on fieldworks I have been conducting in Amman between 2017 and 2021 and focusses on the case study of the Mārkā parish, Mary mother of the Church locally known as dayr al-Lātīn. Since 2015, Father Khalil Ja‘ar, the priest in charge of the parish, have welcomed Iraqi families, opened an informal school for Christian Iraqi kids, developed crafts projects and opened a clinic. During this fieldwork I interviewed religious authorities, benevolent and beneficiaries of Christian assistance in the parish of Mārkā neighborhood, in the north-east of Amman. Tracing the debates, networks and competitions existing between Christian humanitarian actors, I carried out a series of interviews with Caritas, and other Melkite or Latin Catholic clerics, who also developed initiatives towards Christian Iraqi refugees in Amman.
How did the issue of migration come to the forefront of the Catholic Church's debates? How faith-based charities and Christian clergy influence denominational policies and modes of belonging but also the migration path and policies? How did migrants reinvigorate local religious institutions in Jordan? How have religious humanitarian actors established themselves as key actors within the humanitarian field? What strategies for adapting to the realities of the field and humanitarian careers have been developed over the last ten years? To tackle these issues, this chapter will first detail the protocols and reception mechanisms developed by Caritas and the Catholic church in Amman and highlight the sectarian or denominational logics in humanitarian policies. Then, the case study of the Christian school of Mārkā and the initiative of Fr. Khalil Ja‘ar retrace an unofficial response of reception and assistance policies for these refugees. This response, has been the subject of debate and discussion within the Church and between the faith-based charities of the region.