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.
The Christian teenager IS turned into an atheist
Seventeen-year-old Ibrahim* found himself trapped in the northern Iraqi town of Bartella along with his elderly mother in 2014. The website of the US-based Public Radio International (PRI) tells the story of what happened to them after Islamic State jihadists had expelled all the other Christians and installed themselves as […]
US and UN strike $55 million deal for Iraq’s religious minorities
Ethnic and religious minorities in northern Iraq are set to receive assistance worth US $55 million from the UN’s international development agency (UNDP), funded by the US government. USAID, the development agency of the US government, said the money would be used to help minorities living in parts of Iraq […]
Mosul Christmas Mass hailed a ‘victory over IS’ as Sunni youth install giant Christmas tree
The celebration of a Christmas Eve Mass in Mosul after the city’s devastating three-year occupation by Islamic State (IS) marked “a kind of victory” over the extremists, a church leader there said. And the installation of a number of large Christmas trees around the city was unprecedented, said the leader, […]
Iraq bishop recalls his abduction from Baghdad in new book
It was 2001 and Saad Hanna watched in horror as his TV showed the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center smouldering and collapsing. Then a trainee priest studying in Italy, he said to fellow seminarians, “The world is turning upside down. The Americans will not let this be.” […]
Iraq: Basra Christians living in ‘deep fear and mistrust’
The remaining Christians in the southern Iraqi city of Basra are living in a climate of “deep fear and mistrust” of the Muslim majority, despite recent attempts to promote inter-religious harmony, according to Al-Monitor. In September, for instance, an Armenian organisation helped to erect a statue of the Virgin Mary, […]
Universal Children’s Day: Kidnapped Christina receives letter from German namesake
When German teenager Christina learned that a three-year-old girl with the same name from Qaraqosh, Iraq, had been abducted by Islamic State militants in August 2014, she started praying. A few months ago she heard the news of Christina’s release and decided to write a letter to the little girl, […]
First Christian school to open in Iraq since 1970s
Iraq has given permission for the first new Christian school to open in the country since 1974, when education was nationalised, reports Asia News. The Catholic primary school will open in September 2018 in Basra, near the country’s Gulf coast. Chaldean Archbishop of Basra, Alhava Habib Jajou, said he hopes […]
Nineveh Christians still talk of emigration, despite Iraqi-Kurd peace agreement
Christians in Kirkuk and other parts of northern Iraq continue to worry about insecurity in the Nineveh Plains despite the recent peace agreement between Kurdish and Iraqi forces. Recent clashes between the Kurdish Peshmerga and the combined forces of the Iraqi army and al-Hashd al-Shaabi – the pro-Iraqi militia groups – […]
Christians who fled IS displaced again as Iraqi and Kurdish forces clash
Fighting has erupted between Iraqi and Kurdish forces in a predominantly Christian town in northern Iraq, causing residents to flee. Around 900 families have fled Telskuf and its surrounding villages – part of the Nineveh Plains region of northern Iraq liberated last year from the Islamic State group – to […]
Christians on alert as Iraqi forces take over Nineveh Plains
Christians who have returned to the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq, three years after fleeing Islamic State militants, are on high alert now Iraqi forces have retaken some of the disputed region from Kurdish forces. Father Poulos, one of the priests in the town of Bashiqa, near Mosul, told World […]