Tag: Islamic State

US and UN strike $55 million deal for Iraq’s religious minorities

January 12, 2018 Iraq Iraq, Islamic State, Minorities, Nineveh Plains, UN, USA

Iraqi families like that of 12-year old Noeh will receive assistance in returning home after they fled IS. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

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 . . . Read More

Netherlands joins UN Security Council to shine light on IS genocide

January 11, 2018 Global News -- No Particular Country Genocide, Iraq, Islamic State, Lord Alton, Middle East, Netherlands, Syria, UK, UN, Yazidis

A church in Karamles, a town near Mosul, after IS was pushed out in October 2016. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

The Netherlands has just joined the UN Security Council as a temporary member for a year. Ten days before, its Foreign Minister, Halbe Zijlstra, published a letter explaining the Dutch government’s response on the use by politicians of the term “genocide”. The Dutch Parliament had had several debates on the . . . Read More

‘Unprecedented’ persecution of Egypt’s Christians heads 2018 World Watch List

January 10, 2018 Global News -- No Particular Country Africa, Anti-conversion law, Boko Haram, Cairo, Central Asia, Churches, Converts, Copts, Egypt, Eritrea, Fulani herdsmen, Hindu nationalism, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Jharkhand, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Marawi, Middle Belt, Middle East, Mindanao, Minorities, Nepal, Nigeria, North Korea, Philippines, Somalia, Southeast Asia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, Upper Egypt

More Christians abused in India than in all other countries combined; Nepal enters list Islamic extremists driven out of Iraq and Syria are behind a new intensity of Christian persecution in surrounding countries, says global charity Open Doors in its latest annual survey of countries where it is most difficult . . . Read More

Mosul Christmas Mass hailed a ‘victory over IS’ as Sunni youth install giant Christmas tree

January 5, 2018 Iraq Chaldeans, Christmas, Iraq, Islamic State, Mosul, Orthodox, Saddam Hussein, Sunni, Youth

Christmas 2017 in Iraq
The celebration of a first mass in Mossul (Mosul) since 2014. His Beatitude Raphael Sako and Bishop Shlemon Warduni (from the Chaldean Church) are presiding the Mass. Archbishops Mouche (Syriac Catholic) and Abp Nicodemus Dauod Matti Sharaf (Syriac-Orthodox) were participating. Muslim representatives were present at the celebration.

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, . . . Read More

Egypt: brothers shot dead ahead of Coptic Christmas

January 2, 2018 Egypt Cairo, Christmas, Copts, Giza, Helwan, Islamic State

Two brothers helping a Coptic Christian shop owner were shot dead on New Year’s Day in Giza, Greater Cairo. The men, who owned a car-parts shop next door, had been helping to stock the shop with alcohol, reported Al Arabiya. The Christian brothers were killed when a gunman pulled up . . . Read More

Christmas for refugees in Lebanon: far from home and reduced to handouts

December 30, 2017 Lebanon Beirut, Iraq, Islamic State, Lebanon, Refugees, Syria

How do Christians under pressure for their faith celebrate Christmas? In the seventh in our series we hear from a Lebanese Catholic who helps look after Iraqi and Syrian refugees in Beirut. Lebanon has absorbed more than a million refugees from conflicts in nearby Syria and Iraq, where Christians either . . . Read More

Machine-gun ambush kills Christians leaving church near Cairo

December 29, 2017 Egypt Bishop Angaelos, Cairo, Copts, Egypt, Helwan, Islamic State

Preparations for memorial services following the Dec. 29 attack on Mar Mina church in Helwan, south of Cairo. (Photo via Twitter / @auscma)

This version contains updated information about the details of the attack, and comments from witnesses contacted by World Watch Monitor. Several Christians were gunned down as they left church services on the morning of 29 December near the Egyptian capital, Cairo, the Coptic Church and various government authorities reported. At . . . Read More

Sweden opens church for 5,000 Christians who fled Middle East

December 15, 2017 Baghdad, Catholics, Chaldeans, Germany, Iraq, Islamic State, Middle East, Mosul, Sweden

Evening mass at Mar Elia Chaldean Catholic Church in the Iraqi city of Erbil, attended by many refugees from Mosul and Nineveh Plains who fled IS. (Photo: World Watch Monitor, 2014)

A new church opened last week in the Swedish town of Södertalje, 30km south of Stockholm, for the estimated 5,000-6,000 Chaldean Catholics who have resettled there after fleeing their homes in the Middle East. Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne, Germany, who participated in the inaugural service, explained to German . . . Read More

Indonesian children still in recovery mode one year after church bombing

December 14, 2017 Indonesia Borneo, Indonesia, Islamic State, Kalimantan, Samarinda, Terrorism, Trauma

Three-year-old Anita Sihotang is still too scared to leave her house. It has been just over a year since a terrorist threw a Molotov cocktail into the grounds of the church yard where she was playing in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province. The explosion killed one of her friends, two-year-old Intan . . . Read More

British PM Theresa May hears about plight of Christians in Middle East

December 14, 2017 Global News -- No Particular Country Erbil, Iraq, Islamic State, Karamles, Middle East, Mike Pence, New York, Nineveh Plains, Theresa May, UK

The British Prime Minister Theresa May was briefed on the plight of Christians and minorities in the Middle East in a meeting yesterday (13 December) with an Iraqi priest who has been looking after refugees who fled IS violence. Father Daniel Alkory highlighted the plight of Christians and minorities in . . . Read More

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