Tag: Nineveh Plains

Young refugees ‘urgently need access to education’

November 30, 2017 Global News -- No Particular Country Amman, Children, Education, Erbil, Hungary, Iraq, Islamic State, Jordan, Nineveh Plains, Refugees, UN, Youth

The new Catholic University of Erbil offers displaced young people an opportunity to continue their education.

At the start of the 10th session of the UN Forum on Minority Issues, which this year focuses on ‘minority youth’, human rights advocate Ewelina Ochab draws attention to the obstacles displaced young people face in accessing education. Ochab describes meeting Iraqi Christian youth and children in Jordan. Their families . . . Read More

Iraq and Philippines Christians join Red Wednesday religious freedom solidarity display

November 22, 2017 Bashar Warda, Belgium, China, Copts, Egypt, France, IDPs, India, Iraq, Islamic State, London, Manila, Myanmar, Nineveh Plains, Religious freedom, Rohingya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, UN, Uyghurs

Landmarks in the UK, Ireland, Iraq and the Philippines are due to be floodlit in red today (22 November) to highlight the persecution of faith groups for their “peacefully held beliefs”. The “Red Wednesday” initiative is in its second year and has been pioneered by Aid to the Church in . . . Read More

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

November 3, 2017 Iraq Dohuk, Iraq, Islamic State, Kirkuk, Nineveh Plains, Peshmerga

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

US aid to Middle East will fund faith groups before ‘ineffective’ UN

October 26, 2017 Global News -- No Particular Country Barack Obama, Iraq, Middle East, Mike Pence, Nineveh Plains, Peshmerga, Syria, Tel Skuf, USA

The United States’ Vice President Mike Pence has announced that its State Department will favour “faith-based groups” and the US Agency for International Development over “ineffective” UN relief efforts, reports The Independent. Pence made the announcement as keynote speaker at the annual dinner of a Washington-based advocacy NGO In Defense . . . Read More

Christians who fled IS displaced again as Iraqi and Kurdish forces clash

October 25, 2017 Iraq Alqosh, Bashiqa, Dohuk, IDPs, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Nineveh Plains, Peshmerga, Tel Skuf

Fighting has erupted between Iraqi and Kurdish forces in a predominantly Christian town in northern Iraq, causing residents to flee. Around 900 families have fled Telskuf and its surrounding villages – part of the Nineveh Plains region of northern Iraq liberated last year from the Islamic State group – to . . . Read More

Christians on alert as Iraqi forces take over Nineveh Plains

October 18, 2017 Iraq Bartella, Bashiqa, Iraq, Islamic State, Nineveh Plains, Peshmerga, Saddam Hussein

Christian returnees have lunch together in Bashiqa, August 2017. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Christians who have returned to the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq, three years after fleeing Islamic State militants, are on high alert now Iraqi forces have retaken some of the disputed region from Kurdish forces. Father Poulos, one of the priests in the town of Bashiqa, near Mosul, told World . . . Read More

Iraqi-Kurdish violence could push Christians who survived IS ‘to flee for good’

October 17, 2017 Iraq Erbil, Iraq, Islamic State, Karamles, Kurds, Nineveh Plains, Peshmerga, Syria

Fresh large-scale fighting in the disputed territory between Iraq and its Kurdish region could further drain the region of Christians – only months after the military defeat of Islamic State persuaded some to return to their homes, experts have warned. Small numbers of Iraqi Christians are gradually returning to the towns . . . Read More

Hungary’s response to urgent need to help persecuted Christians ‘stay in their homelands’

October 13, 2017 Global News -- No Particular Country Ankawa, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bartella, Erbil, Genocide, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Kurds, Middle East, Nineveh Plains, Qaraqosh, Soviet Union, Syria, Tel Skuf, Viktor Orbán

Referring to his country’s experience of oppression during the Soviet Union era, the Hungarian Prime Minister has once again explained why his government has been the first – and so far the only – government to specifically address the persecution of Christians around the world. Yesterday (12 October) he pledged . . . Read More

Christians returning to former IS-occupied Karamles ‘increasing day to day’

October 12, 2017 Iraq Chaldeans, Iraq, Islamic State, Karamles, Kurds, Mosul, Nineveh Plains

It’s been a year since Karamles was liberated from Islamic State group (IS) militants. It was one of the Nineveh Plains towns east of Mosul that fell to IS as it advanced across northern Iraq in August 2014. The occupation forced Christian families to flee for safer cities like Erbil, . . . Read More

Iraq: today’s vote on Kurdish independence is troubling the Middle East

September 25, 2017 Iraq Elections, Iraq, Islamic State, Kirkuk, Kurds, Middle East, Nineveh Plains, Yazidis

Iraq’s Kurds went to the polls today (25 September) to vote on whether to become a new state, independent of Iraq. According to Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty (RFERL) the vast majority will have voted “yes” to the question on the ballot paper: “Do you want the Kurdistan region and . . . Read More

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