Tag: Iraq

Syrian Christian spearheads ‘one million voices’ petition to support Church to stay in Middle East

November 8, 2016 Aleppo, Iraq, Middle East, Refugees, Syria

A Syrian Christian now living in the UK is helping to bring hope for the future to his native land as part of a worldwide advocacy campaign. Rami (who can’t use his real name for security) co-ordinates ‘Hope for the Middle East’, a seven-year advocacy campaign from charity Open Doors . . . Read More

Christian killed in Basra for ‘selling alcohol’

November 4, 2016 Iraq Basra, Iraq, Qaraqosh

A Christian shop owner said to be serving alcohol was shot dead in Iraq’s southern city of Basra, days after the country’s parliament passed a law prohibiting the commodity deemed “un-Islamic”. Nizar Elias Musa, 47, was shot in the neck late on Tuesday (25 Oct.) by two unidentified gunmen riding . . . Read More

Christian convert in French refugee camp told: ‘We will kill you’

November 2, 2016 Austria, Calais, Croatia, Dunkirk, Grande-Synthe, Greece, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Jacques Hamel, Kurds, Migrants, Refugees

A Kurdish church leader smuggled to Britain says he received death threats – for having left Islam for Christianity – while living in makeshift camps in northern France. The church leader, who did not wish to be identified, spent nine months living in camps outside the French cities of Calais . . . Read More

Germany refugee centre an ‘example for others’ dealing with interfaith conflict

October 24, 2016 Eritrea, Ethiopia, Europe, Iran, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Migrants, Refugees

A week after a new report claimed that life for some Christian refugees in Germany is “still unbearable“, a case study has been released as an example for other refugee centres to follow. The study, which profiles a refugee centre in the central German town of Rotenburg an der Fulda, . . . Read More

One ‘Christian’ town freed en route to Mosul

October 21, 2016 Iraq Assyrians, Bartella, Erbil, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Qaraqosh

As anti-Islamic State (IS) forces continue their operations to recapture Iraq’s second city of Mosul, Christians from towns around it have welcomed the retaking of their two-years’ deserted homes. According to sources monitoring the situation on the ground, Bartella, a town with a significant Christian presence prior to the IS . . . Read More

‘Accelerated targeting’ of ‘disproportionately suffering’ Middle East Christians

October 18, 2016 Iraq Iraq, Middle East, Syria

The Middle East, the historic cradle of Christianity, is today witnessing an accelerated “targeting” of its remaining Christians, according to a report aiming to rally world attention to threats facing ancient communities in Syria and Iraq. “Civil war in Syria and Iraq has unleashed a tidal wave of violent persecution. . . . Read More

Life for some Christians in German refugee shelters ‘still unbearable’

October 17, 2016 Afghanistan, Angela Merkel, Chechnya, Eritrea, Europe, Germany, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Migrants, Refugees, Syria

Mahan, 2, an Iranian Christian refugee who along with his parents is seeking asylum in Germany, peeks from behind a glass partition in the dining room at the Spreehotel refugee centre in January 2015 in Bautzen, Germany. About 200 refugees, many from Syria and Tunisia, but also from Chechnya, the . . . Read More

IS blows up Assyrian church near Mosul

October 10, 2016 Iraq Assyrians, Iraq, Islamic State, Karamles, Mosul, Nineveh Plains

An Assyrian church in Iraq’s north-eastern Nineveh Plains was on Sunday (9 October) the latest to be destroyed by “the Islamic State” (IS), as the jihadist group continues to face losses on the ground. St. Barbara Fouq Attal (on-the-Hill) was blown up when IS fighters “detonated a number of explosive . . . Read More

Erdogan: ‘Only Sunni Muslims should live in Mosul’

October 7, 2016 Al-Qaeda, Ankawa, Arabs, Assyrians, Erbil, IDPs, Iraq, Islamic State, Mosul, Qatar, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Arabia, Sunni, Turkey

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has declared that only Sunni Muslims should be allowed to live in the second largest Iraqi city of Mosul once it has been liberated from Islamic State control. Interviewed by Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on the Saudi Arabia-based TV station Rotana Khalejia on 2 Oct., . . . Read More

Survivors’ stories: life after Islamic State violence

September 28, 2016 Erbil, Iraq, Lebanon, Mosul, New York, Refugees, Syria, UN

The New York Declaration for more humane treatment of refugees, made on 19 September at the 70th UN General Assembly, will be welcomed by the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Syrians, including many Christians, living in displacement camps or with relatives, after fleeing the conflict with so-called Islamic State . . . Read More

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