IRAQ – Sale of Churches Sparks Controversy in Iraq
International Christian Concern | Jan. 8, 2019 The sale of churches and potential corruption regarding the resulting funds has sparked fresh controversy in Iraq. This comes as three churches have…
IRAQ – The New Threat Iraq’s Christians
Real Clear Politics | Dec. 24, 2018 In March of 2017, with the battle for control of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, raging just miles away, I was driven into…
IRAQ – Iraqi Curriculum Incites Violence Towards Religious Minorities
International Christian Concern | Dec. 23, 2018 Archbishop Louis Raphaël I Sako of Iraq’s Chaldean Patriarchate of Babylon has asked the Ministry of Education to review offensive statements which exist…
IRAQ – Rural Iraq Devastated by ISIS
International Christian Concern | Dec. 16, 2018 Amnesty International has released a new report describing how the Islamic State (ISIS) used a scorched earth policy to devastate rural Iraq. This…
IRAQ – Why US forces must step in to save Iraqi Christians from extinction
New York Post | Dec. 15, 2018 When ISIS fighters burst into Father Afran Sony’s monastery in northern Iraq in June 2014 wielding machine guns and knives, he and his…
IRAQ – Basra Christians Slowly Abandon the City
International Christian Concern | Dec. 14, 2018 According to a publication by the Barnabas Fund, an estimated one Christian family a month is fleeing Iraq’s southern city of Basra. It…
IRAQ – Assyrian Village in North Iraq Closes School After Turkish Shelling
Assyrian International News Agency | Dec. 5, 2018 Christian village near the Kurdistan Region's northern border has temporarily halted all activities due to intermittent Turkish shelling near the area. "The…
IRAQ – Militia Forces Threaten Iraqi Priest
International Christian Concern | Dec. 3, 2018 International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on the morning of December 1, Shabak militia forces aggressively blocked access to St. George Assyrian…
IRAQ – 120 Christian Sites Destroyed in Mosul
International Christian Concern | Dec. 2, 2018 Rudaw reports that thousands of Christian homes as well as 120 churches and Christian shrines have been destroyed by ISIS in Mosul alone.…
IRAQ – Mosul’s Destruction Haunts the Nineveh Plains
International Christian Concern | Nov. 29, 2018 Mosul was once a beautiful city. Today, piles of rubble are everywhere. Buildings are completely demolished; cars are riddled with bullet holes. Despite…
IRAQ – Mosul’s Destruction Haunts the Nineveh Plains
International Christian Concern | Nov. 29, 2018 Mosul was once a beautiful city. Today, piles of rubble are everywhere. Buildings are completely demolished; cars are riddled with bullet holes. Despite…
IRAQ – Iraq Cracks Down on Customary Tribal Justice
International Christian Concern | Nov. 23, 2018 The centuries old Iraqi tribal practice of resolving disputes through the “degga ashairiya” has now been classified by the government as an act…
IRAQ – 350 Christian Homes Illegally Seized in Iraq
International Christian Concern | Nov. 21, 2018 An investigation by an Iraqi media source, al-Sumaria, revealed that at least 350 Christian owned properties have illegally been seized. The government has…
IRAQ – Christians Report Extortion Threats in Ankawa
International Christian Concern | Nov. 18, 2018 Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) law enforcement officials have arrested four individuals accused of threatening violence to extort money from residents of Erbil’s Ankawa…
IRAQ – School bells ring again at Mosul’s Christian School
Al- Monitor |Nov. 7, 2018 School bells finally rang at Shimon Safa Elementary School this fall, Mosul’s oldest Christian school that had been closed for four years. The school, also called the Shimon Safa Institute,…
IRAQ – 200 Mass Graves Containing the Remains of 12,000 ISIS Victims are Discovered in Iraq
Daily Mail | Nov. 6, 2018 More than 200 mass graves containing 12,000 bodies, including women, children and the disabled, have been found in Iraq since Islamic State's brutal three-year reign. UN…
IRAQ – The Annihilation of Iraq’s Christian Minority
Gatestone Institute | Oct. 28, 2018 "Another wave of persecution will be the end of Christianity after 2,000 years" in Iraq, an Iraqi Christian leader recently said. In an interview earlier this…
UNITED STATES – U.S. to Redirect Aid to Christian Victims of ISIS in Iraq and Syria
International Christian Concern | Oct. 23, 2018 The Arab Weekly recently reported that the United States would increase aid to Iraqi and Syrian religious and ethnic minorities that were targeted…
IRAQ – Christians have been in Iraq for thousands of years. They might all be gone soon.
America: The Jesuit Review | Oct. 19, 2018 Kevin Clarke is the chief correspondent at America. Recently, he traveled to Iraq for 12 days where he met with Iraqi Christians and…
IRAQ – Archbishop in Iraq Fears Persecution May Erase Christianity from Country
International Christian Concern | Oct. 19, 2018 In a recent statement by Archbishop Habib Nafali, he spoke out against the extreme persecution suffered by the church in Iraq and calling…
IRAQ – Iraqi Youth Tells Synod Martyrdom isn’t the Only Form of Persecution
Crux | Oct. 15, 2018 OME - For Safa Al Alqoshy of Iraq, the trauma of terrorism goes beyond killing. It’s experienced in a more lasting way through the insecurity…
IRAQ – Iraqi Archbishop Fears more Persecution, says IS Went Underground
Crux | Oct. 9, 2018 Christianity in Iraq is just one wave of persecution away from extinction, said the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Basra. In an interview with Catholic News Service,…
IRAQ – Turkish Airstrikes Target Iraqi Assyrian Villages — Call for War Crimes Investigation
Assyrian International News Agency | Oct. 3, 2018 The Turkish military launched airstrikes targeting Iraqi Christian villages in northern Iraq, a rights group warned. Local sources have told International Christian…
IRAQ – IS Sex Slave Recalls having to Watch Torture of Other Women
World Watch Monitor | Oct. 3, 2018 One of the Christian women who was captured, trafficked and used as a sex slave by ISIS has told The European Post she was forced to watch public…
IRAQ – Iraq Inches Toward Governance as Baghdad Christians Consider Fleeing
International Christian Concern | Oct. 3, 2018 International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on October 2, 2018, Iraq’s interim government took a positive step toward breaking months of deadlock…
United States – ‘Eliminate’ Blasphemy Laws, says US Commission Chief on International Blasphemy Day
World Watch Monitor | Oct. 1, 2018 In Pakistan, blasphemy accusations often leads to riots, like this one in Islamabad in November 2017.(Photo: World Watch Monitor) Blasphemy laws are “dangerous”…
BAGHDAD – Social Media Star, a Former ‘Miss Baghdad,’ Shot Dead
CNN | Sept. 28, 2018 Iraqi social media star and model Tara Fares has been shot dead in Baghdad, security officials confirmed to CNN. The death of Fares and other…
IRAQ – A Mostly Non-Christian Militia Won 2 Of Iraqi Christians’ Parliamentary Seats, Now Christians Want Trump To Intervene
The Babylon Brigade is led by a Christian but is tied to the brutal Iranian-backed Muslim paramilitary Badr Organization. Huffington Post |052318 WASHINGTON ― A mostly non-Christian militia linked to…
IRAQ – “Persecuted Christians in Iraq don’t consider themselves heroes, they believe they did what they had to”
Rome Reports | 042418 | VIDEO Christians from the Nineveh Plains celebrated Easter like this... in churches still burned by the Islamic State, like this one in Qaraqosh. They also…
MIDDLE EAST – Is This the End of Christianity in the Middle East?
There was something about Diyaa that his wife’s brothers didn’t like. He was a tyrant, they said, who, after 14 years of marriage, wouldn’t let their sister, Rana, 31, have…