Chaldean Christian Evan Jabro at the Head of the Ministry for Refugees and Migrants in Iraq

Evan Faeq Yakoub Jabro (Right) Courtesy: Agenzia Fides

Baghdad (Iraq): A Christian professor belonging to the Chaldean Church will manage the policies of the Iraqi government regarding the migratory emergency and the relocation of internally displaced persons. Her name is Evan Faeq Yakoub Jabro, she teaches biology and has distinguished herself in the past for paying attention to social emergencies concerning the younger generations, usually neglected by the blocks that dominate Iraqi politics.

On Saturday June 6, with a second vote of confidence, the Iraqi Parliament approved the appointments to lead seven of the 22 ministries of the government led by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi still without a titular. Al Kadhimi, former director of Secret Services, became Prime Minister in Iraq on May 7, 2020.

The task the new Christian minister will have to face appears delicate and demanding. The dossier concerning the tens of thousands of Christians who fled in 2014 from Mosul and the Province of Nineveh due to the advance of the jihadists of the Islamic State, will also be within her competence. Most of them found refuge in Erbil and Iraqi Kurdistan, and have never returned to their homes and villages.

In the past, Evan Jabro worked with the NGO Al-Firdaws, founded by Fatima Al-Bahadly in 2003, and committed to developing social and work projects aimed primarily at women and young people. The new minister also held the role of adviser to the Governor of Mosul on minority issues, and in the May 2018 Iraqi political elections she had competed as a candidate for the assignment of one of the 5 seats reserved for Christian minorities, according to the “system of quotas”.

Evan Jabro’s appointment to lead the Ministry of Migration and Refugees has not been immune from controversy and conflict. In recent days, a statement from the Chaldean Patriarchate denied as unfounded the fact sheets that attributed Evan Jabro the role of “adviser” of the Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako for questions concerning the Christian communities of the Nineveh Plain.

~Agenzia Fides