Tag: Kurds

Iraqi Christian family ordered to leave IDP camp but have nowhere to go

November 30, 2018 Iraq Ankawa, Erbil, IDPs, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Mosul, Tel Skuf

The last Christian family remaining in an IDP camp north of Erbil have turned to the local government and aid organisations as they have been asked to leave the camp but have nowhere to go, Kurdish news website Rudaw reports. Sena Behnam and her husband said they have to stay . . . Read More

Kurdistan elections: Christian parties want ‘real needs’ of minority to be heard

September 28, 2018 Iraq Bashar Warda, Elections, Iraq, Kurds, Louis Raphael I Sako, Minorities, Nineveh Plains, USA

The site of Mar Elia Church in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan region, where hundreds of Christians camped, displaced by Islamic State. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

The Christian minority in Iraqi Kurdistan is hoping for its “real” representatives to be voted into the Kurdish regional parliament this Sunday, 30 September, reports Kurdish news service Rudaw. The presidential and parliamentary elections in the semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq are the first after a referendum last year in . . . Read More

Brunson’s third Turkish hearing focused on PKK allegations

July 31, 2018 Turkey Andrew Brunson, Izmir, Kurds, PKK, Suruç, Syria, Turkey

No hard evidence was produced against US pastor Andrew Brunson at his latest trial hearing on 18 July by the three prosecution witnesses called to give verbal testimony before Izmir’s Second Criminal Court. Judicial interrogations at this hearing focused almost entirely on the pastor’s connections with ethnic Kurds. Although one . . . Read More

Iraqi archbishop tells USAID delegation to hurry up aid delivery

July 4, 2018 Iraq Bashar Warda, Donald Trump, Erbil, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Louis Raphael I Sako, Middle East, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Religious freedom, Sunni, USA, Yazidis

An Iraqi Catholic archbishop has said he and other bishops are “delighted” that the US aid arm is to make good on a pledge to send aid directly to non-Muslim communities recovering from ISIS’s occupation of their towns and villages, but warned “time is running [out]”. Archbishop Bashar Warda of . . . 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

Assessment of religious conversions as genuine or asylum-motivated dismissed as naïve

June 8, 2018 Aideen Strandsson, Asylum seekers, Baptism, Converts, Denmark, Europe, Finland, Germany, Iran, Kurds, Middle East, Migrants, Netherlands, Refugees, Sweden

Revd Mark Miller of St Thomas' Church, Stockton, in north-east England, The Priest-in-Charge of St Thomas’s, Stockton-on-Tees, the Revd Mark Miller, has had up to 100 Persian asylum-seekers in his congregation

Attempts by Western politicians and media to judge whether Iranian migrants and asylum-seekers who ask to be baptised are either genuine or are doing so to boost their chances of being granted asylum are “naïve”, according to an academic who has carried out extensive research among Iranians who profess to . . . Read More

Turkey returns confiscated Syriac church property deeds

June 1, 2018 Turkey Istanbul, Kurds, Mardin, Midyat, Mor Gabriel Monastery, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Syriacs, Turkey

Syriac Orthodox Christians have welcomed the Turkish government’s return of 55 title deeds, representing nearly half of their ancient church properties in southeast Turkey, which had been confiscated by the state in recent years. Fifty of the official property deeds were delivered to the Syriacs’ 4th century Mor Gabriel Monastery . . . Read More

Brunson’s lawyer: secret witness practice ‘absolutely outlandish’

May 10, 2018 Turkey Andrew Brunson, Coup, Fethullah Gülen, Gaziantep, Izmir, Kurds, PKK, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Religious freedom, Şanliurfa, Suruç, Terrorism, Turkey, UN, USA

Lawyer Ismail Cem Halavurt speaking with journalists at the entrance to the Sakran Prison complex on 7 May, 2018.

At the close of Turkey’s second trial hearing against US pastor Andrew Brunson, his lawyer has sharply protested the Izmir court’s reliance on secret prosecution witnesses against his client. Jailed for the past 19 months, the 50-year-old Evangelical Presbyterian minister was sent back to his cell in a maximum-security prison . . . Read More

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

May 9, 2018 Iraq Anbar, Chaldeans, Elections, IDPs, Iraq, Islamic State, Karamles, Kirkuk, Kurds, Nineveh Plains, Qaraqosh, Saddam Hussein, Shia, Sunni

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

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