‘Next time we will not survive’ – Middle East Christian refugee

Boy outside a tent in a refugee camp in Lebanon. (Photo: World Vision)
As many as 80% of Syria’s Christians have left their country since the start of the civil war in 2011, while 50% of Iraq’s Christians have been uprooted since 2006, according to a report produced by Christian charities Open Doors International, Served and Middle East Concern last year, which said the . . . Read More

Chaldean Patriarch congratulates surprise Iraqi election winner

Chaldean Patriarch congratulates surprise Iraqi election winner
The Chaldean Patriarch, Louis Sako, has telephoned Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr to congratulate him on his unexpected victory in the country’s recent parliamentary elections. The Patriarchate also said that Sako told Sadr he hoped for a government that promotes the common good of all the Iraqi people. According to . . . Read More

Praying for a peacemaker: What do Iraq’s elections mean for the remaining Christians?

A boy recently returned to his home in the Nineveh plains, looks out over the remains of Karamles (WWM May 2017)
Iraqis go the polls on Saturday (12 May) for the first time since the military defeat of Islamic State, whose campaign of terror against non-Muslims pushed thousands of the country’s last Christians to flee their homeland. Only about 200,000 to 300,000 Christians are thought to remain in Iraq now, mostly . . . Read More

Iraq’s young people must lead its rebuilding, says archbishop

Army truck with Iraqi flag on its way in the direction of Mosul. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
The rebuilding of Iraq should be guided by its young people, says an archbishop who took in 700 students from Mosul University after the occupation of the city by Islamic State in June 2014. Bishop Yousif Thoma Mirkis of Kirkuk, 170km southeast of Mosul, recently visited the university and reunited . . . Read More

Nineveh Christians still talk of emigration, despite Iraqi-Kurd peace agreement

In an attack of IS on Friday 21 Oct 2016, about 50 students and 8 nuns were in the area where IS launched an attack on Kirkuk. Check also the article on GP, published 24 Oct 2016.
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 – . . . Read More

IS ‘mass rape’ of Iraqi minority women is ‘normal’

As the battle to regain Mosul intensifies, a captured Islamic State (IS) militant has said his commanders gave permission for the men to rape as many Yazidi women as they wanted. Speaking to Reuters, Amar Hussein, 21, said he raped more than 200 women from Iraqi minorities. He also claims . . . Read More