Tag: Iraq

Inside a migrant camp in northern France

March 15, 2017 Calais, France, Grande-Synthe, Iran, Iraq, Kurds, La Linière, Migrants, Refugees

Armed police amass outside as the day draws to a close at La Linière migrant camp in Grande-Synthe, northern France, which has just celebrated its one-year anniversary. There was an incident last night and there’s every chance another could follow tonight. This camp may boast a new, prettier face, but . . . Read More

Sunni Arabs ‘helped drive out’ Middle East Christians

March 13, 2017 Iraq, Islamic State, Middle East, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Rape, Sunni, Syria

Amid the push by Iraqi government forces to retake Mosul from Islamic State (IS), some former inhabitants of Christian villages in the Nineveh Plains and northern Syria are refusing to go back because they believe their former Sunni Muslim neighbours were complicit in driving them out, says Middle East analyst . . . Read More

Iraq urged to allow UN investigation into genocide

March 10, 2017 Iraq Genocide, Iraq, Islamic State, Jizya, Middle East, Rape, Torture, UN, Yazidis

International human rights lawyer Amal Clooney has called upon the Iraqi government to allow a UN investigation into the treatment of Yazidis by the so-called Islamic State (IS), reports Reuters. A year ago, the UK Parliament joined US Secretary of State John Kerry, the US House of Representatives, the EU . . . Read More

Iraqi Christian homes ‘looted after IS left’

February 23, 2017 Iraq Iraq, Islamic State, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Qaraqosh

Armed forces fighting Islamic State (IS) near Mosul “looted, damaged and destroyed homes” belonging to displaced Iraqis, including Christians, Human Rights Watch said this week. The New York-based agency used satellite imagery and took witness statements, and concluded that looting and destruction took place in the weeks after IS militants had . . . Read More

Trump travel ban dints Iraqi Christians’ support

February 23, 2017 Iraq Assyrians, Dohuk, Donald Trump, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Kurds, USA

Iraqi Christians who backed the candidacy of Donald Trump have become disillusioned with his presidency since his executive order barred Iraqis, along with citizens of six other Muslim-majority countries, from entering the US. Many Iraqi minorities supported Trump because of his anti-Islamic State rhetoric. The Assyrian Church of the East’s . . . Read More

IS to cast long shadow over Iraqi civilians

February 17, 2017 Iraq Anbar, Fallujah, Iraq, Islamic State, Mosul

Violence and deep division will continue to imperil Iraqi civilians long after Islamic State (IS) is driven out from the territory it captured, according to a lengthy dispatch from the devastated Iraqi city of Fallujah. After The Caliphate, published on BuzzFeed, quotes a senior official in Fallujah, Taleb al-Hosnawi, warning that . . . Read More

Video: Christians begin Qaraqosh clean-up

February 13, 2017 Iraq Iraq, Islamic State, Nineveh Plains, Qaraqosh

Now that their city has been liberated from Islamic State (IS) fighters, Christian families have begun cleaning up Qaraqosh in a bid to reclaim their lives in northern Iraq. One of the first jobs is removing IS graffiti, reports Al Jazeera English. “The writing on the wall is just superficial. It . . . Read More

Trump’s pledge to persecuted Christians – welcome news or harmful to those he seeks to protect?

February 1, 2017 Bishop Angaelos, Donald Trump, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Migrants, Refugees, Syria, Terrorism

Donald Trump has spoken of the need to prioritise refugees from persecuted faith groups – especially Christians – at the same time as he has halted immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. World Watch Monitor summarises the response of Christian opinion leaders in America and elsewhere. US President Donald Trump’s executive order . . . Read More

Sifting through the debris of IS’s destruction

February 1, 2017 Iraq Bartella, Iraq, Islamic State, Karamles, Nineveh Plains, Qaraqosh

The formerly Christian towns in northern Iraq liberated from Islamic State have been “destroyed” by jihadists who used a cathedral courtyard as a shooting range, according to a lawyer who visited them. Vienna-based legal counsel Ewelina Ochab, author of Never Again: Legal Responses to a Broken Promise in the Middle . . . Read More

Muslims hid Christian woman from IS for years

January 26, 2017 Iraq Iraq, Islamic State, Mosul, Tel Kaif

When Iraqi government troops liberated Tel Kaif from Islamic State militias last week, they found that a 60-year-old Christian woman had been hidden for almost three years by her Muslim neighbours, reports Al Araby. Georgette Hanna did not manage to join the thousands of Christians fleeing Mosul and other towns . . . Read More

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