Tag: Islamic State

US to fast-track $35m aid to Iraqi Christians and Yazidis

June 20, 2018 Iraq Bashar Warda, Iraq, Islamic State, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Trauma, USA

Noeh's family home still stands. A lot of the other homes have been destroyed completely.

The relief agency of the US government is to fast-track some US$35 million in government aid for Iraqi Christians and Yazidis who were terrorised by Islamic State (IS), after Vice President Mike Pence hit out at “bureaucratic delays” in the funds’ distribution. USAID is to give $10 million to two US-based umbrella . . . Read More

Iraqi Christian Rita was sold four times on the IS sex slave market

June 19, 2018 Iraq Iraq, Islamic State, Mosul, Peshmerga, Qaraqosh, Quran, Rape, Syria, Trauma, Turkey, Women, Yazidis

Iraqi Christian Rita Habib was sold four times on the ISIS sex slave market. (Photo: Still from video)

Rita, a Christian woman from the Iraqi town of Qaraqosh, was 26 when Islamic State invaded her town and took her captive. She was sold and bought four times as a sex slave before she was freed in 2017 and reunited with her father in April this year, almost four . . . Read More

What churches can do to help victims of sexual violence in conflict to stay ‘part of us’

June 19, 2018 Global News -- No Particular Country Central African Republic, Children, Iraq, Islamic State, Minorities, Rape, Religious freedom, Seleka, Trauma, UN, USA, Women, Yazidis

Women affected by violence in the Central African Republic, have formed self-help groups in the capital Bangui and run a small shop where they sell their products. (Photo: Open Doors International)

Adrienne* survived a brutal sexual attack during a conflict with ex-Seleka militants in Central African Republic (CAR), only to be ostracised from her own community. Adrienne was alone in her greatest time of need, and the baby born to her nine months later bears the same vulnerabilities, and a label: a . . . Read More

Syria: Christians and Yazidis among 250,000 displaced in Afrin

June 19, 2018 Syria Afrin, Aleppo, Damascus, Free Syrian Army, Islamic State, Kobani, Kurds, Maaloula, PKK, Raqqa, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Sharia, Syria, Turkey, Yazidis

Turkish-backed Syrian rebels walk past a burning shop in Afrin on 18 March. (Photo: BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images)

Significant numbers of Christians and Yazidis have fled their homes in northern Syria’s Afrin enclave, World Magazine reports, ever since Islamist militants joined with the Turkish military this past January to oust Syrian Kurdish fighters from the region along Turkey’s border. Turkey considers the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units) to . . . Read More

Muslims and Christians unite to restore ancient Iraqi church

June 14, 2018 Iraq Baghdad, Churches, Erbil, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Nineveh Plains, Ramadan, USA

An historical Christian site in Iraq is receiving visitors again for the first time in 20 years, having previously been shut off due to security concerns, Al-Monitor reports. The remnants of the first-century Church of Kokheh, located 20 miles (32 kilometres) south of the capital Baghdad, were discovered and excavated . . . Read More

Ad in Vanity Fair tells #MeToo celebrities of women who suffer for their faith

June 8, 2018 Global News -- No Particular Country Boko Haram, India, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Italy, Kidnapping, Nigeria, Religious freedom, Women, Yazidis

Rebecca Bitrus was abducted by Boko Haram in 2014 and suffered because of her faith. (Photo credit: Claire Giangravé/Crux news agency)

An ad in the Italian edition of Vanity Fair has called for the global #MeToo campaign to include women who suffer violence because of their religion. The Vanity Fair ad includes an open letter to some of the actresses who spoke out as part of the #MeToo initiative, like Asia . . . Read More

Indonesia: How women and children became agents of terror

June 7, 2018 Indonesia Ahok, Children, Indonesia, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, JAD, Jakarta, Muhammadiyah, Surabaya, Women

Women pray in Blue Mosque in Indonesia's capital Jakarta. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Terrorism in Indonesia is now carried out by “entire families, including mothers and children”, one local police chief noted, three weeks on from the suicide blasts on three churches and a police station that claimed 27 lives, including 13 attackers. In raids following the series of bomb attacks, Jakarta security . . . Read More

Philippines parliament approves bill for autonomous Bangsamoro

May 31, 2018 Philippines Bangsamoro, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Marawi, Maute, Mindanao, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte

The Bangsamoro Basic Law is seen as key to ending decades of conflict and stopping the growth of Islamic extremism in the southern region of Mindanao where just last year the city of Marawi was attacked by a militant group. (Photo: Getty Images)

The Philippines parliament yesterday (30 May) approved a bill that will give greater autonomy to the southern region of Mindanao, as reported by Reuters. The approval of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) is another step towards the creation a new autonomous territory called Bangsamoro, named after its ‘Moro’, or Muslim, . . . Read More

Indonesia approves new anti-terrorism law after Surabaya church bombings

May 30, 2018 Indonesia Aceh, Indonesia, Islamic State, JAD, Java, Surabaya, Terrorism

The Surabaya Pentecostal Church's front yard and remainders of the gate's canopy after the bomb attack on 13 May in which five people died. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Indonesia’s government has approved a new anti-terrorism law that gives police more freedom to carry out preventative arrests and detain terrorist suspects for longer, as reported by AsiaNews. The proposed changes, which had been under discussion for two years, were approved by parliament on Friday, 25 May, just ten days after the . . . Read More

Coptic mother’s agony at trauma of son who saw Islamists kill his father

May 25, 2018 Egypt Copts, Islamic State, Minya

One year ago Hanaa, a 42-year-old Egyptian mother of four, took a phonecall that changed her and her family’s life forever: her son called to say he and his brother had just seen their father shot by Islamist militants. On 26 May 2017 a convoy of Copts was travelling to . . . Read More

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