Tag: Saddam Hussein

Praying for a peacemaker: What do Iraq’s elections mean for the remaining Christians?

May 9, 2018 Iraq Anbar, Chaldeans, Elections, IDPs, Iraq, Islamic State, Karamles, Kirkuk, Kurds, Nineveh Plains, Qaraqosh, Saddam Hussein, Shia, Sunni

A boy recently returned to his home in the Nineveh plains, looks out over the remains of Karamles (WWM May 2017)

Iraqis go the polls on Saturday (12 May) for the first time since the military defeat of Islamic State, whose campaign of terror against non-Muslims pushed thousands of the country’s last Christians to flee their homeland. Only about 200,000 to 300,000 Christians are thought to remain in Iraq now, mostly . . . Read More

Iraq’s Assyrian Christians: persecution and resurgence

April 4, 2018 Iraq Ankawa, Assyrians, Bartella, Chaldeans, Erbil, Iraq, Islamic State, Karamles, Kurds, Migrants, Nineveh Plains, Peshmerga, Qaraqosh, Refugees, Saddam Hussein, Syria, Women, Yazidis

Samir Gedhya never wanted to leave his home in Qaraqosh for the unknown, even when the Islamic State group was almost at his doorstep, sweeping through the towns of Iraq. As the menace to Qaraqosh loomed, his eldest son Faraj, then 16, decided to flee to France, entering by a . . . Read More

Mosul Christmas Mass hailed a ‘victory over IS’ as Sunni youth install giant Christmas tree

January 5, 2018 Iraq Chaldeans, Christmas, Iraq, Islamic State, Mosul, Orthodox, Saddam Hussein, Sunni, Youth

Christmas 2017 in Iraq
The celebration of a first mass in Mossul (Mosul) since 2014. His Beatitude Raphael Sako and Bishop Shlemon Warduni (from the Chaldean Church) are presiding the Mass. Archbishops Mouche (Syriac Catholic) and Abp Nicodemus Dauod Matti Sharaf (Syriac-Orthodox) were participating. Muslim representatives were present at the celebration.

The celebration of a Christmas Eve Mass in Mosul after the city’s devastating three-year occupation by Islamic State (IS) marked “a kind of victory” over the extremists, a church leader there said. And the installation of a number of large Christmas trees around the city was unprecedented, said the leader, . . . Read More

Iraq bishop recalls his abduction from Baghdad in new book

December 13, 2017 Iraq Baghdad, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Kidnapping, Kurds, Middle East, Saddam Hussein, Sunni, Torture

It was 2001 and Saad Hanna watched in horror as his TV showed the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center smouldering and collapsing. Then a trainee priest studying in Italy, he said to fellow seminarians, “The world is turning upside down. The Americans will not let this be.” . . . Read More

Christians on alert as Iraqi forces take over Nineveh Plains

October 18, 2017 Iraq Bartella, Bashiqa, Iraq, Islamic State, Nineveh Plains, Peshmerga, Saddam Hussein

Christian returnees have lunch together in Bashiqa, August 2017. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Christians who have returned to the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq, three years after fleeing Islamic State militants, are on high alert now Iraqi forces have retaken some of the disputed region from Kurdish forces. Father Poulos, one of the priests in the town of Bashiqa, near Mosul, told World . . . Read More

Iraqi Archbishop of Mosul: ‘My cousin, my friend, my teacher – all killed by terrorists’

August 31, 2017 Iraq Al-Qaeda, Iraq, Islamic State, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Saddam Hussein, Salafism

The last Christian leader to leave Mosul after it was invaded by the Islamic State group in 2014 has spoken about his personal loss to terrorism, as Nuri Kino reports in the Huffington Post. Archbishop Nicodemus Daoud Sharaf, who risked his life to stay as long as possible in Mosul, . . . Read More

Opposition to Iraqi enclave for non-Muslims voiced by Erbil diocese

March 30, 2017 Iraq Erbil, IDPs, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Mosul, Peshmerga, Saddam Hussein

The Catholic Church in northern Iraq has voiced its opposition to suggestions that an enclave should be created to safeguard non-Muslims fearful of returning to live among their Muslim neighbours. However Stephen Rasche, aid co-ordinator for the Catholic diocese of Erbil in northern Iraq, also said that the likelihood of . . . Read More

‘Six weeks’ medicine and two months’ food for displaced Iraqi Christians’

March 24, 2017 Iraq Bashar Warda, Erbil, Iraq, Saddam Hussein

The supplies sustaining displaced Christians in northern Iraq will run out “within weeks” but UN agencies, accused of ignoring them, have pledged to do better since the advent of US President Donald Trump, the aid co-ordinator for the Catholic archdiocese of Erbil said. Without significant financial aid and sufficient care, . . . Read More

Iraqi Christians look homeward toward Mosul, uncertainly

October 21, 2016 Iraq Bashiqa, Islamic State, Jordan, Kurds, Lebanon, Mosul, Peshmerga, Refugees, Saddam Hussein

Displaced Iraqi Christians take part in celebrations on 18 October in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, to mark the liberation of Qaraqosh, which was Iraq’s largest Christian town before it was overun by Islamic State militants in August 2014. Tens of thousands of . . . Read More

Iraq’s Mosul Archbishop had to pay ‘protection money’ before his 2008 kidnap and death

July 21, 2016 Iraq Al-Qaeda, Iraq, Islamic State, Jizya, Kidnapping, Mosul, Quran, Saddam Hussein

The Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul, who was murdered by militias in 2008, paid protection money to safeguard his clergy for years before his kidnapping and death, an aide has told World Watch Monitor. Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was abducted in February 2008 from the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which . . . Read More

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