Tag: Tel Kaif

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

Iraqi Christians ask: Where were our Kurdish protectors when IS came?

November 22, 2016 Iraq Assyrians, Baghdad, Erbil, IDPs, Islamic State, Jordan, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Peshmerga, Qaraqosh, Refugees, Tel Kaif

A young girl in a camp in Levo, northern Iraq, holds up a picture of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. One question that still angers many of the Christians who fled northern Iraq as jihadists from Islamic State (IS) advanced on their towns and villages is, “Where were the Kurdish . . . Read More

More Iraqi towns ‘freed’ but Nineveh Christians not confident about safe return

October 25, 2016 Iraq Bartella, Bashiqa, Chaldeans, Islamic State, Karamles, Middle East, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Peshmerga, Qaraqosh, Tel Kaif

The heavily damaged and burnt Tahira (Immaculate) Syriac Catholic Church in Baghdeda.World Watch Monitor As prayers were offered in Syriac in front of the altar of the trashed church of Mart Shmoni in the recently freed town of Bartella, more homes where Christians used to live in Iraq’s north-eastern . . . Read More

‘We have no voice’: Christians in Jordan 2 years after fleeing N. Iraq

August 5, 2016 Iraq Genocide, Islamic State, Jordan, Lebanon, Mosul, Qaraqosh, Refugees, Tel Kaif, Women

Bahar (left), 81, with her daughters, Samira and Bahija. IS beat Bahija and ransacked their home in Tel Kayf, outside Mosul. Bahar’s family shares a one-bedroomed house in Amman with another family of three, who sleep in the lounge.World Watch Monitor Bahija, 65, a housekeeper, told me she cries . . . Read More

New urgency for an old idea: Nineveh

September 17, 2014 Iraq Assyrians, Baghdad, Basra, Fallujah, Islamic State, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Peshmerga, Saddam Hussein, Tel Kaif

An ancient Nineveh gate, east of Mosul.James Gordon / Flickr / Creative Commons The militant Islamist rampage across Iraq has intensified calls for a Christian “safe zone,” even as it has made the task of achieving it more difficult. The jihadists, who call their movement the “Islamic State,” have . . . Read More

Qaraqosh falls, thousands flee

August 8, 2014 Iraq Ankawa, Genocide, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Kurds, Mosul, Peshmerga, Qaraqosh, Tel Kaif

Map of IS occupation in Iraq as of August 7 2014. Courtesy of Open Doors International Armed jihadists of the so-called “Islamic State” took over Iraq’s largest Christian town, Qaraqosh, and nearby Christian settlements early Thursday, forcing thousands of Christians to flee to Kurdish-controlled areas. Statements of anguish and . . . Read More

IS invades monastery, steals ‘everything’ from Iraqi Christians

July 22, 2014 Iraq Al-Qaeda, Alqosh, Baghdad, Batnaya, Chaldeans, Dohuk, Erbil, Genocide, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Jizya, Kidnapping, Kurds, Louis Raphael I Sako, Minorities, Mosul, Qaraqosh, Sunni, Tel Kaif

After every known Christian is reported to have left Mosul, Islamic State fighters, IS, have now taken over a monastery near the largely Christian town of Qaraqosh, 32 miles southeast of Mosul. According to Agence France Presse IS expelled its three resident monks, a cleric and a few families living there, ordering . . . Read More

Catching Our Eye