Iraq

Modern Iraq sits at the heart of ancient Mesopotamia, a region that has been home for millennia to diverse ethnic and religious communities, including Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Turkmen, and Armenians. Islam is the majority religion, with most Iraqis identifying as Shiite Muslims and a significant Sunni Muslim minority. Alongside them are historic religious minorities, including Christians, Yezidis, Mandaeans, Shabak, and others, whose continuous presence long predates Islam and the modern Iraqi state.

The Nineveh Plains, located east of Mosul, have historically been the heartland of Iraq's indigenous Christian communities, including Assyrian, Chaldean, and Syriac Christians, whose continuous presence in the region dates back nearly two thousand years. Towns such as Qaraqosh, Bartella, and Karamlesh have long served as centers of Christian worship, culture, and communal life. Sinjar is the historic homeland of the Yezidi people, one of the oldest ethno-religious communities in Mesopotamia, with centuries of continuous presence rooted in the mountains and surrounding villages of the region.

Iraq's contemporary crisis can be traced in large part to the 2003 US-led invasion, which dismantled state institutions and security forces without establishing a stable political alternative. The resulting power vacuum fueled sectarian violence, militia formation, and the fragmentation of governance along ethnic and religious lines. Minority communities, who lacked armed protection or political influence, were disproportionately affected. Christians in particular became targets of kidnappings, church bombings, assassinations, and forced displacement. Between 2003 and 2014, Iraq's Christian population fell dramatically from an estimated 1.5 million, roughly 5 percent of the population, to a fraction of that number.

The collapse accelerated in August 2014, when ISIS launched a coordinated offensive across northern Iraq, capturing Mosul, the Nineveh Plains, and Sinjar. In Mosul and surrounding Christian towns, ISIS issued ultimatums demanding conversion to Islam, payment of a religious tax, or execution. Christian homes were marked for confiscation, churches were desecrated or destroyed, and entire communities fled overnight, leaving behind homes, businesses, and centuries-old heritage.

For the Yezidi people, the ISIS assault constituted genocide. On August 3, 2014, ISIS attacked Sinjar, home to an estimated 400,000 Yezidis. Within days, thousands were killed, and more than 6,000 Yezidi women and children were abducted. Men and elderly women were often executed immediately, while women and girls were subjected to systematic sexual slavery, forced marriage, and trafficking across Iraq and Syria. The United Nations later determined that ISIS committed genocide against the Yezidis. More than a decade later, the wounds remain open — thousands of Yezidi women and children are still missing, and mass graves continue to be exhumed across Sinjar.

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq played a critical role as a refuge after the genocide, with cities such as Erbil and Dohuk absorbing hundreds of thousands of displaced Christians and Yezidis. In the Nineveh Plains, conditions for return remain fragile: Iranian-backed militias and competing security actors have weakened local governance and fostered an atmosphere of intimidation, land seizures, and political marginalization, leaving many returning families with destroyed homes and little access to employment or state support.