Tag: Assyrians

Christian hostages reveal Syrian ransom saga

December 9, 2016 Syria Assyrians, Hasakah, Islamic State, Khabur, Kidnapping, Syria

Former Islamic State hostages have revealed that , launched by a Syrian bishop who rallied the Assyrian Christian diaspora around the world. , the Assyrian Christians were handled roughly and harassed repeatedly to convert to Islam. They expected to die, but within a week the IS militants sent 17 Assyrians . . . 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

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

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

Kurdish YPG ‘occupy’ Assyrian villages in northeast Syria

October 4, 2016 Syria Assyrians, Chaldeans, Hasakah, Islamic State, Khabur, Kurds, Syria

As fighting intensifies to retake areas of north-eastern Syria from the so-called Islamic State (IS), the media spotlight shows the complexity of the military picture. The Khabur River region in Syria’s Hasakah province was attacked by IS in February 2015. Thirty-five Assyrian villages were emptied; days later IS kidnapped and . . . Read More

Iraqi MPs reject ‘safe areas’ for Christians

September 28, 2016 Iraq Assyrians, Genocide, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Shia, Sunni, Yazidis

A majority of Iraq’s Members of Parliament have rejected any proposals to set aside safe areas for Christians and other indigenous minorities in the country’s Nineveh Plains, once the province is liberated from the “Islamic State” (IS). “The Parliament has voted to keep Nineveh’s provincial boundaries as they were prior . . . Read More

Frontier town sees first Communion despite IS

August 18, 2016 Iraq Alqosh, Assyrians, Chaldeans, IDPs, Iraq, Louis Raphael I Sako, Nineveh Plains

A Christian town some 50km north of the Islamic State’s Iraq stronghold of Mosul has celebrated its first Communion Mass, completing the initiation of a hundred boys and girls in the faith. In what was described as a “historic moment”, Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako presided over the ceremony . . . Read More

2 years after IS drove them from their homes, Iraqi Christians ‘are still in survival mode’, bishop says

August 1, 2016 Iraq Ankawa, Assyrians, Islamic State, Nineveh Plains, Peshmerga, Refugees

U.S. State Department Deputy Secretary Antony Blinken at the Washington Conference on Threats to Religious and Ethic Minorities Under ISIL, 29 July in Washington, D.C.Video capture / U.S. Office of Policy Planning and Public Diplomacy Two years after being driven from their homeland by the so-called Islamic State, displaced . . . Read More

Attack badly damages church in northeast Syria

July 22, 2016 Syria Assyrians, Churches, Islamic State, Qamishli, Syria

An Assyrian Orthodox church was attacked Monday in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli, resulting in extensive damage to its interior, local sources said. “Anonymous gunmen stormed the St. Charnel Church for Assyrian Orthodox in the Watwatiyah district of Qamishli in the midnight on Monday, and destroyed its contents,” a . . . Read More

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