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World Refugee Day: How a terrorist attack in Iraq led to a mission from God

Father Karam Alraban knew he wanted to be a priest since childhood. But he never could have imagined the horrific events that would propel him on that path, and lead him to flee his country as a refugee to save his own life.
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Father Karam Alraban, at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Gordon Head, where he shares his stories ahead of World Refugee Day, which is on Tuesday. Alraban was granted refugee status in Canada in 2014 after fleeing Iraq, where his life was threatened and terrorists killed clergy and parishioners at his home church in Baghdad.

Father Karam Alraban knew he wanted to be a priest since childhood. But he never could have imagined the horrific events that would propel him on that path, and lead him to flee his country as a refugee to save his own life.

“The experience of being Christian in Iraq is one marked with lots of conflict and difficult times,” said Alraban, 29, in his new office at Holy Cross Parish in Gordon Head. The priest grew up in Baghdad and came to Canada in 2014, one of about 300 Iraqis granted refugee status that year.

Alraban, who comes from the Syriac Catholic rite — one of several early Christian minority groups in the Middle East — said he decided to be a priest when he was seven.

He said Sunday mass was a refuge for him, and watching the priest lead mass, discuss the gospel and help others “motivated me to be in that image.”

Alraban started seminary school at 15. He was in his early 20s studying at a monastery when a terrorist attack on his family church turned his world upside down.

“It was the year before my graduation, on Oct. 31, 2010. That was the huge event that was a shock for me,” Alraban said.

During mass, five terrorists entered the church. “They started to shoot people and throw grenades,” he said.

It would become known around the world as the Baghdad church massacre. Fifty-eight people were killed and dozens maimed and wounded.

Alraban said that while he was not at the church at the time, “I lived every single moment that those people [did]. I feel every single feeling they felt. I share every single hour they were dealing with this pain and suffering.”

Many of the victims were his friends, schoolmates and relatives.

“They killed two of the most important people in my life,” Alraban said — priests Thaer Abdal, 33, and Waseem Sabeh, 27.

During the attack, the terrorists, later identified as Islamic militants, told parishioners they were being taken hostage in retaliation for an alleged kidnapping in Egypt.

Alraban said when the terrorists entered the church, Abdal was just finishing the homily. “He said: ‘If you want to take a hostage or kill someone, don’t hurt the innocent people. Come and take me, kill me, but don’t kill anyone else in the church,’ ” he said. Fifteen bullets were later recovered from Abdal’s body. The priest’s brother was shot and killed while trying to help him. His mother was also shot. She now uses a wheelchair.

The other priest, Sabeh, tried to help parishioners escape from a side door. When a security guard offered to help him hide, Sabeh said: “No, I will go back. I will never leave my people,” Alraban said. Sabeh asked the terrorists if they could have a peaceful conversation. “They shot him immediately,” he said.

He recounted other tragic stories, like that of the nine-month-old boy shot in the head by a terrorist because his mother could not stop him from crying.

“Imagine that. Nine months old,” he said.

There is another story that he believes shows God’s presence with the victims that day.

“There was a three-year-old child named Adam. Among these attacks, he left his parents and stood in the middle of the church. He yelled at the terrorists: ‘Enough, enough,’ ” Alraban said. “I believe this child would not have been able to do that by himself unless he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to deliver the message of peace and invite the terrorists to stop.”

The child was killed, along with his father.

Alraban said the story of Raghda Wafi is one of the most painful for him.

Wafi was a friend who was newly married and had gone to the hospital behind the church with her husband for a pregnancy test. Her husband said he would wait for the results if she wanted to go to mass.

Alraban said Wafi was in a group of people that tried to hide in the church sacristy during the attack. They blocked the door with a bookshelf, but the attackers blew a hole in it and threw grenades into the small, packed room.

“According to her husband, the last phone call was after one of the grenades was thrown. She was bleeding and told her husband: ‘Don’t worry, my beloved. I will die, but I want you to have hope in your life.’ She wasn’t able to continue the conversation and she died.”

At the funeral a few days later, Alraban walked among hundreds of mourners in a procession through the streets and questioned his decision to become a priest.

“There was a kind of fear and stress and anxiety. All of these feelings were controlling me after having lost my friends, my parishioners, my colleagues and my relatives,” he said.

“The church now has no priest. They’ve all died. People started coming to me, hugging me and saying: ‘We’re putting our hope on you, father. You’re going to be the one to carry the mission.’ ”

In that moment, Alraban said, he saw it as a mission from God that he wanted to accept. He became a deacon within a few months and was ordained as a priest less than a year later — as soon as he turned 24 and was old enough.

“After that, I worked with the poor, persecuted Christian families, visited remote areas of Baghdad, families who were marginalized, scared and also dealing with the victims of the attack who lost fathers, mothers and sons,” Alraban said.

He worked at his home church for a year before moving to another parish in the city. It was there, in 2013, that he was left a handwritten letter in an offering box outside the church that threatened to “spill his blood.” Alraban decided to keep a low profile and stayed inside the church for three days.

“Then I thought: I can’t hide forever. So I went to the market,” he said. As he was driving back to the church through a residential area, he suddenly heard the voices of people outside. “Then I notice there’s a hole in the windshield of my car. They were using a silent gun.”

He thinks the first shot was intended for his chest, but hit the dashboard and curved. He sped up as more bullets were fired at him, hitting his car. He made it home and decided to leave Baghdad. Attacks targeting priests and Christians showed no sign of slowing down.

“I’m a person who doesn’t easily cry. But when the driver picked me up that next morning at 5 a.m., after I put my suitcases in the car, I started crying like a baby,” Alraban said. “It was a very hard moment for me to feel like the country that I love, that I’m a citizen of, is not able to protect me from terrorists. Even the police cannot protect themselves. I didn’t know where I was going, but knew I needed to escape.”

He went to stay with family in the north and applied for a Canadian visa. When he arrived in Toronto, he made a claim for refugee status.

“This was the first time for me to experience a huge diversity of people who are living with each other in a way that they still accept the rights of each other. And they have equal protections, access to services, opportunities,” Alraban said. “I could summarize my experience in Canada in one sentence: Canada is a place that made me feel like a neighbour when I should have felt like a stranger.”

While in Toronto, he met Victoria Bishop Gary Gordon, who invited him to join his diocese. He had never heard of Vancouver Island, but arrived in Victoria in 2015, and then went to Parksville to work as an administrator at the Church of Ascension.

“It was important for me to get to know the culture and also the diversity of thinking we have in this country and to be introduced to different ideologies and backgrounds,” he said. He took up hiking, biking, mountain climbing and fishing, and took a management course at Vancouver Island University.

In May, Alraban was transferred to Holy Cross Parish in Gordon Head, where he shared some of his story with the congregation on one of his first Sunday services. He said in sharing his story now, with World Refugee Day on Tuesday, he hopes to help others to want to live in peace and accept each other. He hopes other refugees have access to the same support and community he has.

“It’s important today not to just tolerate newcomers, but to accept them. When you tolerate people, they feel it. When you accept them, you accept their identity and even differences, but at the same time, you start to become a helpful member to lead them to join the community and society of Canada,” he said.

“It’s important we have the ability to explain the culture in a way that suits the people who are listening to us, who are learning from us. We can’t explain our culture in a way full of prejudices, making the other party feel their culture is less than ours, or not as evolved.”

Alraban said every nation has dark chapters of history and it’s important to shine a light on that, “to learn from the bad experiences and move forward to make a bright history. That will happen when we accept people with their diversity and their differences.”

spetrescu@timescolonist.com