USAID Recognizes Partnership with WCA in Bartella, North Iraq

On 7 September 2020, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) recognized its partnership with the World Council of Arameans (Syriacs) (WCA) regarding the reconstruction of a community center. After ISIS seized the largely Aramean Christian town of Bartella in the Nineveh Plain in August 2014, it began to make use of this building.

Recently, WCA issued a press release with more details and photos of this joint project. Concerning USAID’s latest public announcement, the WCA President, Johny Messo, remarks: “Working with Max Primorac, USAID’s former Special Representative for Minority Assistance Programs in Iraq, and his team has been a pleasure and honor for us. The position itself and the project show that this U.S. Administration truly cares about Iraq’s decimated and vulnerable minorities such as the Arameans. It is our hope that America will help them survive in Iraq.”

USAID’s acknowledgement was published by the U.S. Consulate General in Erbil, which shared it on its Twitter account together with four new photos and a link to a statement on Facebook. Below we are republishing the full text with a screenshot of the Facebook post:

USAID Religious and Ethnic Minority Programming Rebuilds Community Center in Ninewa Province Iraq.

 

The United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is pleased to announce the reconstruction of the Bartalla community center in Ninewa province. The community center, once a vibrant gathering place for weddings, holiday celebrations, and other activities for Christians and other minority groups in the region, was destroyed along with most of the city’s infrastructure by the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) over the course of their 2014-2016 occupation of Bartalla.

 

This project, a partnership between USAID, the Bartalla Reconstruction Committee, and the World Council of Arameans (Syriacs), is the latest example of the U.S. Government’s ongoing commitment to the preservation of Iraq’s rich religious pluralism. USAID provided $250,000 for the reconstruction of the community center, with an additional contribution of $100,000 from the World Council of the Arameans.

 

These efforts will promote the reestablishment of the center as a focal point for the community, and will assist in the return and reintegration of persecuted religious minorities in northern Iraq. The project complements other USAID support to the recovery of Bartalla, including rehabilitating two health clinics and seven schools, restoring electricity, removing rubble from dozens of homes, installing street lights, equipping the Women’s Department, and expanding waste management services. These projects will allow for the safe return of more displaced individuals and families to Bartalla, which is down to half its original 30,000 residents.

 

Advancing international religious freedom is a major foreign policy priority of the United States, with the goal of reducing levels of religious persecution, bias, and discrimination, countering religion-related violent extremism and terrorism, and tracking and preventing potential mass atrocities through early warning systems. USAID activities that support religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East are essential components for the preservation of diverse, vibrant communities that are peaceful, prosperous, and secure. Since 2017, USAID has provided more than $370 million for activities that support religious and ethnic minorities across the region.

 

USAID - US Agency for International Development

World Council of Arameans [Syriacs]

USAID Middle East

USAID Iraq

USCGERBIL

 

The number of Christians of Iraq, who still speak Aramaic as their mother tongue in daily life and who use a literary Aramaic dialect in church, have fallen from 1,4 million in 2003 to less than 200,000 today. Before 2003, after earlier underreported exoduses of Christians from the country, there were 1.4 million Christians left in Iraq, making up 5.4% of its overall population of 26 million. Today, 17 years later, the country has fewer than 200,000 Arameans, a shocking drop of 85% and a mere 0,5% of Iraq’s rapidly growing total population of 40,2 million!

Since 1983, WCA is the global umbrella federation of the Aramean (Syriac) people. Since 1999, it is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. WCA continues to support and represent the interests of the Aramean people, who are native to Syria, Iraq, Southeast Turkey and Lebanon. A notable example is that since late 2013, WCA and its Federation in Germany moved the German Government to set up humanitarian aid programs for the Arameans in Damascus, Homs, Northeast Syria and North Iraq until today, totaling over 12 million euro.

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Download here the Press Release.

 

On 13 March 2021, WCA published a video (click on the image below), which contained a brief update in Aramaic,

but also new photos of the community center that will be completed in the coming 6-8 weeks!