Tag: Raqqa

‘Next time we will not survive’ – Middle East Christian refugee

November 12, 2018 Aleppo, Batnaya, Beirut, Hasakah, Iraq, Islamic State, Kirkuk, Lebanon, Middle East, Mosul, Qaraqosh, Raqqa, Refugees, Syria, UN

Boy outside a tent in a refugee camp in Lebanon. (Photo: World Vision)

As many as 80% of Syria’s Christians have left their country since the start of the civil war in 2011, while 50% of Iraq’s Christians have been uprooted since 2006, according to a report produced by Christian charities Open Doors International, Served and Middle East Concern last year, which said the . . . Read More

Syria: Christians and Yazidis among 250,000 displaced in Afrin

June 19, 2018 Syria Afrin, Aleppo, Damascus, Free Syrian Army, Islamic State, Kobani, Kurds, Maaloula, PKK, Raqqa, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Sharia, Syria, Turkey, Yazidis

Turkish-backed Syrian rebels walk past a burning shop in Afrin on 18 March. (Photo: BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images)

Significant numbers of Christians and Yazidis have fled their homes in northern Syria’s Afrin enclave, World Magazine reports, ever since Islamist militants joined with the Turkish military this past January to oust Syrian Kurdish fighters from the region along Turkey’s border. Turkey considers the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units) to . . . Read More

Seven Christians smuggled out of IS-held Raqqa

August 10, 2017 Syria Islamic State, Raqqa, Syria

Kurdish-led forces in Syria rescued seven Christians from IS-held Raqqa on Tuesday (8 August). “Our forces have saved two Armenian families,” said Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian, Armenian, Turkmen and Circassian militias. The Syriac Military Council (SMC), a member of . . . Read More

Syriac Christians in front line in battle against IS in Raqqa

June 30, 2017 Syria Islamic State, Raqqa, Syria

While the battle for Raqqa is raging on, Syriac Christians are among those on the frontline. They say they are fighting to liberate all Syrians but also “because Islamic State militants destroyed churches and forced Christians to convert to Islam”, reports Al-Monitor. Abboud Seryan and his colleague Aleksan Chmou are . . . Read More

Young Syrian tells how he survived ‘worst-case scenario’ of kidnap and torture by Islamic State

February 9, 2017 Syria Aleppo, Islamic State, Qamishli, Raqqa

Meghrik was kidnapped and tortured by Islamic State before his release. Photo: December 2016.World Watch Monitor Meghrik* was on a bus when it happened. He was travelling from Aleppo to Al-Qamishli in the north east of Syria, a seven-hour journey even before the war started. Now war means there . . . Read More

Church names 21 Christians IS killed in Qaryatain

April 25, 2016 Syria Islamic State, Qaryatain, Raqqa, Syria

The Syriac Orthodox Church has published names of the 21 Christians it said were killed by the ‘Islamic State’ during its 8 month occupation of the Syrian town of al-Qaryatain. IS had captured the town (92 km southeast of Homs) in August 2015, before it was recaptured by the Syrian . . . Read More

Living as a Christian in the Islamic State

February 18, 2016 Syria Islamic State, Raqqa

When John, a Syrian Christian, chose to stay in Raqqa after the Islamic State took control of the city in 2014, he had no idea how he would survive. Thousands abandoned the city, believing it better to save their lives than live at the centre of the Islamists’ new “caliphate”. . . . Read More

Islamic State’s ‘caliphate’ shrank 14% in 2015

January 6, 2016 Afghanistan, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Mosul, Ramadi, Raqqa, Syria, Turkey, USA

Islamic State’s self-proclaimed ‘caliphate’ – the area within Syria and Iraq that the group controls – shrunk by more than 12,000 square kilometres in 2015, says . The loss of 14 per cent of its territory reduces the caliphate to 78,000 square kilometres. Main losses are large swathes of Syria . . . Read More

Another ancient Assyrian monastery bulldozed

August 21, 2015 Syria Assyrians, Bashar al-Assad, Homs, Iraq, Islamic State, Jacques Mourad, Paolo Dall’Oglio, Qaryatain, Raqqa, Syria

Photographs posted Thursday on Twitter accounts linked to the Islamic State destroyed in the past six months by jihadist fighters. The 5th century Mar Elian Monastery in Syria’s western Homs province was located on the outskirts of Qaryatain city, captured by IS militants two weeks ago from Assad regime control. An . . . Read More

ISIS preparing for worldwide religious cleansing

December 22, 2014 Europe, Iraq, Islamic State, Mosul, Raqqa, Syria

German author and former politician, Juergen Todenhoefer spoke with CNN after travelling into territory occupied by ISIS including Syrian cities Raqqa and Iraq’s second largest city Mosul. “I think the Islamic State is a lot more dangerous than Western leaders realize,” he said to CNN . Their main point of . . . Read More

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