Tag: IDPs

Burkina Faso church leader killed by Islamists: ‘I’d rather die than leave my community’

May 2, 2019 Burkina Faso Assemblies of God, Burkina Faso, Djibo, IDPs, Islamic extremism, Islamic State West Africa Province, Ken Elliott, Sahel, Sirgadji, Soum, West Africa

An outdoor church outside a home western Burkina Faso.(Photo: CIF Action via Flickr; CC 2.0)

Gunmen who attacked a Protestant church in Burkina Faso on 28 April asked the pastor and five others to convert to Islam before they killed them, World Watch Monitor has learned. Last Sunday’s violence in the West African country appears to have been the first attack, specifically on a church . . . Read More

Ethiopia: Ethnic Somali Christian police man forced to relocate after talking about his faith

February 7, 2019 Ethiopia Ethiopia, Human rights, IDPs, Oromia, Religious freedom, Somali Region

A Christian police officer in Ethiopia's eastern Somali region was advised to return to Islam but refused, claiming a constitutional right to religious freedom. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

An Ethiopian police officer was arrested, dismissed and forced to move to another part of the country after he told colleagues about his Christian faith The 25-year-old man, who grew up in Ethiopia’s eastern Somali region as a member of the nearly 100 percent Muslim Somali tribe, became a Christian . . . Read More

CAR: Children hurt as another displaced persons camp attacked

December 6, 2018 Central African Republic Alindao, Bocaranga, Central African Republic, Children, Gambo, IDPs, Seleka, UN, UPC, Women, Zemio

As many as 100 civilians lost their lives in an attack on a refugee camp and cathedral in Alindao last month, said Amnesty International. (Photo: Catholic Church in CAR)

A church-run camp for displaced people in south-eastern Central African Republic was attacked on Tuesday, 4 December, less than three weeks after 60 people, including two priests, were killed in an attack on another camp. Tuesday’s attack took place in the town of Ippy, which is 200km north of the . . . Read More

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

Nigerians displaced by Boko Haram told to return to dangerous areas to vote

September 5, 2018 Nigeria Adamawa, Boko Haram, Borno, Fulani herdsmen, IDPs, Nigeria, Yobe

In northeast Nigeria, thousands of people who have fled Boko Haram’s attacks have been told to return back home, despite security concerns. Boko Haram’s nine-year insurgency has led to an acute crisis, described by the United Nations as one of the most severe in the world today, with more than 20,000 people killed, . . . Read More

Myanmar’s blocking of aid to Kachin ‘may amount to war crime’ – report

August 31, 2018 Myanmar IDPs, Kachin, Karen, Myanmar, Refugees, Rohingya, Southeast Asia, UN

An elderly Kachin woman looks for shelter after fleeing fighting between Myanmar's army and Kachin rebels in December 2011. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Myanmar has blocked humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of forcibly displaced people in the ongoing war in northern Kachin state – for over seven years – says humanitarian group Fortify Rights in a new report. “Consecutive governments and the military have wilfully obstructed local and international aid groups, denying . . . Read More

Myanmar’s ‘forgotten Christians’

August 16, 2018 Myanmar IDPs, Kachin, Karen, Minorities, Myanmar, Refugees, Shan, Youth

An internally displaced woman with a child stands near a temporary shelter in a church compound in Kachin's capital Myitkyina. (Photo: YE AUNG THU/AFP/Getty Images)

While the world is focusing on the plight of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims, Christians caught up in another conflict, in northern Kachin, are largely forgotten, writes Geoffrey P. Johnston for Canadian newspaper The Whig. Thousands have been killed and least 120,000 displaced in majority-Christian Kachin state, where the army and the . . . Read More

Nineveh Plains Christians ‘slowly returning to normal’

August 8, 2018 Iraq Assyrians, Baghdad, IDPs, Iraq, Islamic State, Karamles, Nineveh Plains, Qaraqosh

Four years since IS seized the town of Karamles in northern Iraq’s Nineveh Plains, the local Christian community are “returning, albeit slowly, to normal”, AsiaNews reports. Hundreds of Christians joined in a procession following a Mass at the weekend, holding candles and chanting psalms, to celebrate their return and the new life . . . Read More

UN chief ‘personally concerned’ about return of Christians to Iraq and Syria

June 21, 2018 Afghanistan, Al-Shabaab, Antonio Guterres, Asylum seekers, Bashiqa, Human rights, IDPs, Iraq, Islamic State, Kachin, London, Migrants, Myanmar, Patriarch Kirill, Refugees, Somalia, South Sudan, Southeast Asia, Syria, UN

Tree and Arabic painting on the wall in Bashiqa, a town near Mosul in Iraq where Christians are slowly returning, saying: "Tomorrow will be more beautiful." (will be better) (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

The UN’s Secretary General has stressed the importance of Christians returning to the areas from which they fled in Iraq and Syria. “I am fully convinced that after the stability of the situation in Iraq and Syria and the adoption of a certain political decision, it is very important to . . . Read More

Myanmar: ‘400 villages destroyed, 150,000 people displaced’ in Kachin

June 13, 2018 Myanmar Churches, Genocide, IDPs, Kachin, Minorities, Myanmar, Rakhine, Rohingya, Shan, UN

More than 400 villages have been damaged or destroyed and 150,000 people displaced since the collapse of a ceasefire in 2011 between Myanmar’s army and rebels in northern Kachin state, reports Catholic website AsiaNews. In 2018 alone, 50 villages were abandoned and more than 7,000 people fled their homes, seeking . . . Read More

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