Nigeria: Violence continues but government in denial, church leaders say

A village in northern Nigeria after an attack by Fulani militants. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
A pregnant woman and a child were among four people killed in attacks by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria’s Plateau State last week. The attackers targeted the villages of Ancha and Tafigana in the Bassa Local Government area, as reported by news site Nasoweseeamonline. Margaret Wakili, 27, from Ancha – . . . Read More

‘It’s time to be real: what happens in Iraq is ethnic cleansing’ – UK analyst

Tahira Church in Qaraqosh, a Christian town in northern Iraq, shortly after liberation from Islamic State in November 2016. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
What Iraq’s Christians want from the West is to say the plain truth: that there is ethnic cleansing of Christians in the region and it is ongoing, Dr Tim Stanley told a meeting at the UK’s parliament last Tuesday, 9 July. The historian and columnist, working for UK daily newspaper . . . Read More

Iraq: UN team starts probe into IS war crimes

Destroyed market in the town of Bartella, 15km east of Mosul, which was liberated from IS by Iraqi forces in October 2016. (Photo World Watch Monitor)
One of the world’s most influential Muslim clerics has told a UN team that an investigation into “heinous crimes” committed against Christian and other Iraqi minorities was welcome and urgent, reports Agenzia Fides The team, known as UNITAD, started its work formally this month following a UN resolution in September 2017. . . . Read More

IS ‘won’t escape justice’ after Trump signs genocide accountability act

US President Donald Trump signs the "Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act of 2018" in the presence of, among others, Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, Iraq (l). (Photo: Getty)
US President Donald Trump has signed into law a bill that will help to ensure aid is provided to Islamic State’s victims in Iraq and Syria and to hold the perpetrators accountable, reports Associated Press (AP). “In recent years, IS has committed horrifying atrocities against religious and ethnic minorities in Syria . . . Read More

‘UN must recognise persecution of Christians in Middle East as genocide’

At the moment of the photo taken, ISIS had just been pushed out of the home towns of these Christians. People were hoping and anticipating to return to their towns some day.
The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) is appealing to the United Nations to recognise the persecution of Christians in Iraq and Syria as “genocide”, reports the US-based National Review. The ECLJ, an affiliate of the American Center for Law and Justice, said a “genocide” declaration is necessary to . . . Read More

Fall in Christian refugee admissions ‘suggests Trump has no real interest in religious persecution’

Iraqi Christians who fled Islamic State have found shelter in a church yard in Erbil, Iraq. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
The United States, under President Trump, has admitted 40 per cent fewer Christian refugees in the past year, US broadcaster NBC News has reported. As the Trump administration has implemented stricter policies on immigration and refugees, almost 11,000 Christians looking for a safe place to go were reportedly refused entry to . . . Read More

‘ISIS won despite defeat as West was unwilling to confront it’

Iraqi Christians ask the international community for help as they are facing annihilation by Islamic State. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
The Islamic State group may have been defeated on the battlefield, but the West has allowed its ideology to “percolate” and in that case it won, writes Seth J. Frantzman for the Jerusalem Post. “[ISIS] won in Iraq and Syria by destroying minority communities. It won because today the international . . . Read More

Call for UN to establish International Day for victims of religious persecution

Call for UN to establish International Day for victims of religious persecution
The United Nations should establish an International Day Commemorating the Victims and Survivors of Religious Persecution, say parliamentarians in the United Kingdom. The proposed annual day should be on 3 August, “being the day when Daesh [the Arabic acronym for ISIS] unleashed its genocidal campaign against the Yazidis in Sinjar, . . . Read More

Myanmar: ‘400 villages destroyed, 150,000 people displaced’ in Kachin

An elderly Kachin woman looks for shelter after fleeing fighting between Myanmar's army and Kachin rebels in December 2011. (Photo: World Watch  Monitor)
More than 400 villages have been damaged or destroyed and 150,000 people displaced since the collapse of a ceasefire in 2011 between Myanmar’s army and rebels in northern Kachin state, reports Catholic website AsiaNews. In 2018 alone, 50 villages were abandoned and more than 7,000 people fled their homes, seeking . . . Read More

Fresh move to prosecute IS for genocide

Destroyed market in the town of Bartella, 15km east of Mosul, which was liberated from IS by Iraqi forces in October 2016. (Photo World Watch Monitor)
Campaigners have welcomed a bill designed to facilitate the prosecution of Islamic State jihadists for genocide against Christians, Yazidis and other minorities in Iraq and Syria. Complaining that efforts to encourage the British government to accuse IS of genocide had received “nothing but rebuttals and refusals”, Lord Alton, a Catholic, . . . Read More