Once home to one of the largest Christian communities in the Middle East, Iraq today is in danger of losing Christianity completely. The Islamic State group forced thousands of Christians to flee after it stormed through the Nineveh Plains in 2014. Some have now returned, following IS’s military defeat. But even with IS gone, in many areas of Iraq daily life is governed by Sharia (Islamic law) and Muslims are forbidden to leave Islam.
Iraqi Christians confront two-year trauma with drama
Part of a play performed by Iraqi Christians forced to flee to Kurdistan after the self-proclaimed Islamic State seized their northern town of Qaraqosh.Video capture / World Watch Monitor “The streets are empty! Why are the streets empty?” The shocked actor shouts at the top of his lungs: “Qaraqosh, […]
‘We have no voice’: Christians in Jordan 2 years after fleeing N. Iraq
Bahar (left), 81, with her daughters, Samira and Bahija. IS beat Bahija and ransacked their home in Tel Kayf, outside Mosul. Bahar’s family shares a one-bedroomed house in Amman with another family of three, who sleep in the lounge.World Watch Monitor Bahija, 65, a housekeeper, told me she cries […]
2 years after IS drove them from their homes, Iraqi Christians ‘are still in survival mode’, bishop says
U.S. State Department Deputy Secretary Antony Blinken at the Washington Conference on Threats to Religious and Ethic Minorities Under ISIL, 29 July in Washington, D.C.Video capture / U.S. Office of Policy Planning and Public Diplomacy Two years after being driven from their homeland by the so-called Islamic State, displaced […]
Iraq Patriarch to Shia clerics: ‘update discourse’
A high-ranking Iraqi Catholic leader has urged visiting Shia religious figures to stress more “equality and rights”, reports said. During a visit by representatives of major Shiite institutions in both Iraq and Iran, Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako outlined the experience of Christians, urging the language of religious […]
Iraq’s Mosul Archbishop had to pay ‘protection money’ before his 2008 kidnap and death
The Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul, who was murdered by militias in 2008, paid protection money to safeguard his clergy for years before his kidnapping and death, an aide has told World Watch Monitor. Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was abducted in February 2008 from the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which […]
Iraq: Why Najiba can’t go home
Najiba in her portacabin – her home as an IDP for the last two years, 2016World Watch Monitor Two years on from Mosul falling to Islamic State, World Watch Monitor hears from Najiba, a woman forced to flee her home on the frontline of fighting between the jihadist group […]
Is Iraq’s media helping ISIS?
Iraq’s media may have unwillingly assisted the so-called Islamic State in spreading its gruesome propaganda releases, . He says many of Iraq’s media outlets have “failed, to varying degrees, to exercise the due level of editorial diligence” and “sometimes ended up unwillingly acting as a force multiplier to allow IS […]
Iraq’s Christians ‘could be gone in 5 years’
ISIS’ jihadist actions mean Christians could disappear from Iraq in five years, says an Iraqi Assyrian priest. Fr. Martin Hermis Dawood told the Telegraph the latest phase of Islamic extremism has only precipitated the trend of Christians exiting their ancestral lands. “Everyone sees himself outside Iraq in a few years. […]
IS destroys Christian landmark in Mosul
The ‘Islamic State’ has completely destroyed another historic Christian landmark in an area under its control, this time in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Quoting “local residents,” “the terrorists … blew the Clock Church fully after booby-trapping it from all sides and the evacuation of nearby houses in the […]
Iraqi Christian militia fighting ISIS
A group of Christians in Iraq has formed its own militia to defend themselves against the so-called Islamic State, . The Babylon Brigade of the Iraq Christian Resistance, headquartered in Baghdad, is the only Christian militia among about 30 Shia and Sunni Muslim outfits that have sprung up over the […]