From Nightmare to Revival - The story of Tel Esqof!

Tel Esqof or Tesqopa – a Ghost-town returns to life!

Fanatic islamaistic djihadists or the peaceful “people of the cross” - what do you think who will persist? No, I don´t give you an answer. I will not even give you a suggestion for an answer. I just ask this question to you, before I will tell you the story of Tel Esqof…

Tesqopa or Tel Esqof, a village that had about 11.000 (some say its been 15.000) Christian inhabitants, is located in the Ninive-plains about 30 km north of Mosul. In the beginning of August 2014 Tel Esqof was taken and held for some days by ISIS terrorists when they conquered the Ninive-plains. 

From the day before ISIS came onwards, Tel Esqof had no more inhabitants, as (thanks to God) all the inhabitants had been able to flee to Iraqi Kurdistan before ISIS arrived. The Islamists of ISIS held Tel Esqof for about two weeks – it was a relative short time, so they did not cause immense destructions, also they destroyed the crosses of the churches and religious items. 

 On August 17^th 2014 Tel Esqof was taken by the Kurdish Peshmerga forces. Some sources say, the Islamists just left without any fighting and withdrew to a line about 2 kilometers from Tel Esqof, other sources say, the Peshmerga have been fighting them out. I don´t know. Anyway, Tel Esqof suffered almost no damage during August 2014.

From that time on, the Peshmerga stationed their troops in some of the houses while most of the village turned into being a ghost town. Sometimes some people had the occasion to visit the village and look for their houses or bury their dead on the cemetery. The frontline was too close, so it was too dangerous to return.

On May 3^rd 2016, ISIS returned to Tel Esqof for some hours after they Islamist terrorists attacked Tel Esqof in the early morning with a surprise attack performed with the help of 8 explosive-filled bombing cars. After an intensive battle the Peshmerga retook control in the evening of that day. The battle left more than 100 killed ISIS-Islamists, about 20 dead Peshmerga behind. There also was one US Navy-Seal shot by the Islamists. A lot of Houses were destroyed that day by the exploding bombing cars and airstrikes by the US-led coalition forces.

During the operations to liberate Mosul and the Ninive-plains, the Peshmerga and other militia, among them fighters of the Ninive Plain Protection Units (NPU), batteled ISIS back towards Mosul, liberating first the neighbour village of Batnaya and later also Tel Kef. Immediately after ISIS was fought back, the preparations for the resettling of displaced inhabitants of Tel Esqof started.

At the end of January 2017, the first 12 families were able to return to their houses in Tel Esqof. These houses had been prepared by the chaldean-catholic diocese of Alqosh with help from different organisations.

Now, in mid-February, its 30 families that live in Tel Esqof – and it will be more with each week passing. 

The flags of ISIS, the graffiti and inscriptions they left – all this is gone. But the people of Tel Esqof (the returned ones as well as those still waiting for return) erected a large cross on the ancient hill besides the village. It is more than 10 meters high and it is enlighted in the night, such giving an answer to the question I asked in the beginning!

On February 18^th, 2017, His Beatitude Louis Raphaël I Sako, patriarch of the chaldean-catholic church and H.E. Mikha Pola Maqdassi, chaldean-catholic bishop of Alqosh come to Tel Esqof and celebrated the first Holy Mass in the towns Mar Georgis church after more than two and a half years, in concelebration with H.E. bishop Manfred Scheuer of Linz, Austria, who joined that event with a delegation from Austria. The church was filled with hundreds of believers. After the blessing, they all went to the hill, where the large cross was blessed and inaugurated.

Over the centuries, the Christians of the Orient suffered a lot of persecution, they were enslaved or killed, their women raped and sold and more than one time they have been close to extinction. But out of the blood of the martyrs Christianity was revived again and again.

You, who reads that article: Please pray for the people of Tel Esqof and all the suffering and persecuted Christians in the Middle East and worldwide! God will bless you for that!