Edge ofEdge ofExtinctionExtinction

The Eradication ofThe Eradication ofReligous and EthnicReligous and Ethnic

Minorities in IraqMinorities in Iraq

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Contents

Summary 1

A Trip to Iraq 2

A Night of Terror 3

Devastation of the Yezidis 4

A Long Winter 5

Living on the Edge of Extinction 6

Recommendations 9

References 10

Religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq are living atthe edge of extinction. They are marginalized andunder threat from the genocidal actions of the Is-lamic State (IS) in Iraq resulting in the purging of re-ligious and ethnic minorities from their historichomes. If immediate action is not taken, the exis-tence of religious and ethnic minority communitiessuch as Christians, Yezidis, Shabak and Turkmen willcontinue on a trajectory of precipitous decline intovirtual non-existence.

Loss of an important religious and ethnic minorityhas occurred in Iraq before. In 1948, the Jewish com-munity numbered 150,000. Today, there are lessthan ten known elderly Jews living in Iraq. An oft-re-peated refrain remains grimly germane: “first theSaturday People, then the Sunday People.”

In the last decade, the Christian community hasplummeted from approximately 1.5 million to300,000. A group of leading Christian religiousleaders representing thousands of adherentslamented:

This is not just the end of Christianity but the end ofour ethnicity who have lived here for thousands ofyears. We believe this is genocide.

They continued:

We do not have opportunities for education. We donot have opportunities for work. We do not have op-portunities for healthcare. What is left for us?

The Islamic State’s desecration and destruction ofhistoric sites of religious and cultural heritage is un-precedented in Iraq. In Mosul, IS has turned an 800-year-old house of worship into a place of torture.Another church in Mosul that has existed for 150years is being utilized as a prison, and yet still an-other is serving as a weapons storehouse.

All of the religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq facethis deplorable reality. Yezidis note that this is the73rd intentional targeting of their community. Whathas changed with the Islamic State is the speed andscope by which these religious and ethnic communi-ties are being decimated. The Nineveh Plains hadbeen one of the last relatively safe havens for Chris-tians, Yezidis, Shabak, Turkmen and other minoritygroups, but with the fall of Mosul and surroundingareas in the summer of 2014, Iraq’s minorities haveno place to go and are nearing the precipice of totaldisappearance.

Immediate action including fresh policy approachesand targeted humanitarian assistance is essential ifthese minority communities are to be protectedwithin their historic homeland.

Summary

1

Between January 21-28, 2015, a delegation from the21st Century Wilberforce Initiative, a new Christianhuman rights organization, traveled to northern Iraqto document ethnic and religious cleansing thereand explore means of assisting Iraq’s displaced reli-gious minorities. The delegation was led by 21Wilberforce Initiative President Randel Everett andformer Congressman Frank R. Wolf, a DistinguishedSenior Fellow with the Initiative. (www.21wilberforce.org).

The team met with over 75 individuals, intervieweddozens of internally displaced Christians and Yezidis,met with senior Kurdistan Regional Government(KRG) officials, received briefings from local and in-ternational human rights organizations, toured afrontline military location less than 1.5 miles awayfrom IS-controlled territory, and visited the NinevehProtection Unit (NPU), a Christian defensive guardin training to protect the historical Christian villagesand towns, if and when they are liberated from IS.

For security purposes, names of specific interviewparticipants have been withheld.

A Trip to Iraq

2

A Night of Terror

Summer 2014 was marked by the swift and largelyunanticipated rise of the Islamic State in Iraq. In amatter of days, the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Tikritfell. Previously unimaginable brutality followed. ISdeclared a caliphate. Christians were ordered toleave lands that had been their home for thousandsof years. Those remaining behind were issued astark choice: convert to Islam, pay the Jizya tax, ordie. Yezidi men were killed and captured and Yezidiwomen and children were sold, raped and tortured.One Yezidi leader, whose pregnant sister-in-law wascaptured and sold by IS mourned, “They were sell-ing the virgin girls for $20… Unbelievable.”

On June 10, 2014, approximately 1,500 IS jihadistsoverran Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq. AsThe Economist noted at the time, “So absolute wasthe rout of Iraq’s army in Mosul that soldiersstripped off their uniforms in the street and fled. Thebodies of those left behind, some mutilated, werestrewn amid burned-out troop carriers.”1 Accordingto The Washington Post, “Tens of thousands of Iraqicivilians also fled the surprise onslaught, which ex-posed the inadequacies of Iraq’s security forces,risked aggravating the country’s already fraughtsectarian divide and enabled the extremists to cap-ture large quantities of weaponry, much of it Ameri-can.”2

Residents in surrounding communities also fled,fearing further advance by IS. When this did not im-mediately materialize, many returned home. Overthe next few weeks, some of these communities re-ceived a pledge of protection from the Peshmerga,the military force of the Kurdistan Regional Govern-ment (KRG). Under-weaponized, Peshmerga forcesconfiscated small arms from these communities.Trust in the promise of defense proved disastrousfor these primarily-Christian communities.

In early August 2014, the Islamic State, or Daesh asit is called by Iraqis, began to expand beyond Mosulinto the greater Nineveh Plain. Qaraqosh was Iraq’slargest Christian village with a population of 50,000.Located twenty miles from Mosul, residents therehad received an explicit security guarantee fromPeshmerga forces. However, as IS approached onAugust 6, 2014, these forces largely melted awaywithout firing a single shot. Senior KRG officialsclaim that this retreat was unfortunate but unavoid-able given the great disparity in arms between theirforces and IS.

To the religious minority residents of this area, how-ever, this was absolute betrayal as the Peshmerga

forces retreated without communicating their inten-tions first to the community leaders or offering anyadvanced evacuation warning to the community atlarge. As night settled on Qaraqosh, residents real-ized IS was advancing and that the military posi-tions had been quietly abandoned. Qaraqosh andnearly all of the roughly 200,000 residents of theNineveh Plain – the vast majority of whom are Chris-tian – fled in terror as IS advanced.

Many of these displaced Christians were highly-edu-cated and affluent professionals such as doctors,lawyers and university professors, and were forcedto leave behind houses, cars and savings accounts.In most cases, they left with nothing more than theclothes on their back. Thousands were displaced ina matter of hours in a modern-day Exodus. It was anight of terror.

A 65-year old woman from Qaraqosh described thescene that night:

We left at 6:00 in the evening. We heard that abomb fell on one house and killed two children anda young woman. We knew that the situation was re-ally bad… [and that] we should leave right then. Sowe all got in the car and left. We didn’t get to takeanything with us because we saw all of the peoplewere leaving, marching so fast… We left all of ourpossessions because we were so terrified.

For some, it was a night of death. One individualnow living in a temporary residence at the BrazilianHealth Center in Erbil lost her cousin, “On the 6th ofAugust mortars fell down and killed my cousin… Shewas 36…. It was the day of her wedding.”

A young Dominican nun explained the horrifyingcondition:

The distance between Qaraqosh and Erbil is onlyabout 50 miles, and should be one hour [by car] butthat day it took us from 11:30pm to 10:00am thenext day because of the thousands of people whowere trying to flee at that point… In the day it was120 degrees. There was no water. We were walkingthrough the desert. There were people everywherein Erbil. It seemed like everybody was crying. In ourtradition men do not cry, so to see elderly men cry-ing breaks your heart. People were sleeping in thestreets. People lost identity, positions, everything,[and the] government did not care.

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Given the misplaced trust in the Peshmerga forcesand the health condition of some residents, not allwere able to escape. One man said:

At four in the morning there was an explosion… Weknew something was going to happen… In 20 hours50,000 people left [Qaraqosh]. Some people whowere unable to walk… were taken by ISIS to Mosul.

Another woman whose husband’s blindness pre-vented their departure explained:

When IS entered Qaraqosh on 6 August, we couldhear ‘Allah Akbar!’ in the streets. ‘Christians, go away

or we will kill you.’ After that they came to ourhouse. ‘Convert or we will kill you.’ We stayed inQaraqosh because it was too difficult for us toleave… we waited for a suitable time to go.

Devastatingly, IS kidnapped this family’s 3-year-olddaughter, directly from her mother’s lap. The ji-hadists told the family they were going to raise theyoung girl from a Christian family as their own, inline with their Islamic ideology.

She is still missing.

Devastation of the Yezidis

At the same time, there was rampant devastation inthe Yezidi community. One Yezidi freshman studentdescribed the terrible situation that confronted him– and about 1,500 other Yezidi students – at the Uni-versity of Mosul. After IS invaded Mosul, the stu-dents moved out of the city but continued to tryand attend classes. This changed when two of thedrivers transporting the students were killed. A no-tice was posted on campus that if the Yezidi stu-dents did not convert to Islam then they too wouldbe killed. The students fled to the Kurdish regionwhere they are unable to continue their educationdue to language differences.

Twelve of the students were only six months awayfrom completing their physician training. As this stu-dent noted, the loss of university education will havelong-term devastating consequences on the com-munity at large.

Young Yezidi women were particularly battered. One19-year old teenager’s experience is illustrative ofthe deplorable situation faced by many in this com-munity, targeted because of their religious beliefs.Captured on August 3, 2014, Du’a (her name hasbeen changed for security reasons), was held by ISfor over 100 days.

Du’a lived in a village close to Sinjar Mountain. As ISmoved to attack the village, many attempted to flee.What Peshmerga forces remained in the area, how-ever, prevented escape. Unable to flee, many in thecommunity were captured. After separating themales and females, the women were loaded into avehicle and transported to Mosul where other Yezidiyoung women were gathered. Approximately 700girls were held including a 7-month-old who hadbeen kidnapped from her family to be raised by IS.

The girls were separated according to eye color, andmembers of IS were allowed to choose the youngwomen according to their personal preference.Du’a’s cousin was selected and, out of fear, grabbedDu’a and sobbed. IS used a rock to beat them apartand took the cousin by force. The remainder of thegirls were separated into “pretty” and “ugly” groupswith those deemed most beautiful transported else-where.

A Yezidi community leader

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Du’a was left behind, locked with others in a housewithout electricity or drinkable water. One youngwoman who did not want to be forcibly marriedcommitted suicide. Eventually, Du’a was taken by ISback to her home village where they tried to ransomher for $200,000. When the money was not forth-coming, Du’a was given a choice: be transferred toSyria or marry an IS fighter. Believing she would beunable to escape from Syria, Du’a chose to marry.

Eventually Du’a and four other Yezidi women whohad been “married” under duress devised a plan toescape together. One night in November, they fledto a prearranged location. In the process, one of theyoung women broke her hand. Together, theywalked for a day and a half before reaching a safehaven on Sinjar Mountain.

A Long Winter

After a flurry of initial news coverage in August, thestory of the men, women and children – whose liveswere upended, homes confiscated and dignity as-saulted – virtually disappeared from the public eye.

The August heat that scorched these religious mi-norities as they fled their homes faded to wintercold. For the first time in a millennium, Christmaswas not celebrated in the ancient churches, monas-teries and convents of the Nineveh Plains. One ofthe world’s oldest Christian communities markedthis holy day in makeshift camps, abandoned build-ings and even an unfinished mall. The situation for these displaced religious minoritycommunities in Kurdistan and beyond remains des-perate. An estimated half-million Iraqis will go thiswinter without their most basic needs met. Thereare reports of Yezidi children freezing to death onSinjar Mountain.

Though statistics are tentative at best, about half ofthe remaining Christian community in Iraq is now liv-ing displaced from their home. Many are residing

with four or five other families in rented houses be-yond the reach of United Nations aid. Others aretaking refuge in unfinished buildings and, in one lo-cation, a former chicken farm. For many of thesefamilies there are no jobs, no schools, and no hopeof returning home.

Most of the Christian community would prefer tostay in Iraq. But with little assurance for their safetyand limited prospects in their displaced situation,about 12 Christian families attempt to leave Iraqeach day. The situation is hardly better in Turkey,Lebanon and Jordan, where in some cases IraqiChristian refugees are targeted with ongoing dis-crimination and marginalization.

Noted religious freedom expert Nina Shea wrote inthe National Review Online, “These Christian com-munities survived the Romans, Arabs, Mongols, Tar-tars, Ottomans, and Baathists by migrating withinthe region. Today, their options are few, as war andwar’s refugees engulf Iraq’s neighbors.”3

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A displaced Christian, living in a converted chicken farm

Having weathered previous onslaughts, Christians,Yezidis and other religious minorities now face anexistential crisis that threatens their very existencein the lands that many have inhabited since antiq-uity.

“Our heritage is back in Nineveh Plains, where wehave some places from the fourth century. So weneed to go back to that place because that is ourheritage. No Syriac heritage will be left. They[ISIS]are trying to clear the Christians out of our his-toric lands…”

- Iraqi Nun

With some notable exceptions, those living in theWest have said or done little in the face of the crisisfacing the minority communities in Iraq. There is apervasive feeling of aband onment among these be-leaguered men and women of faith who cannotcomprehend why burning churches, forced conver-sions and the emergence of a caliphate in the cradle

of Christendom is not being met with urgency andaction by people of similar faiths in the West.

Unknown to many people, Iraq has an ancient bibli-cal heritage. The Bible contains significant refer-ences to the cities, regions and nations of ancientIraq. The great patriarch Abraham came from Ur insouthern Iraq. Isaac’s bride, Rebekah, came fromnorthwest Iraq. Abraham’s grandson Jacob spenttwenty years in Iraq, and his sons, the 12 tribes of Is-rael, were all born in northwest Iraq. The remarkablespiritual revival portrayed in the book of Jonah oc-curred in the city of Nineveh – present-day Mosul. Itis still celebrated every January. The burial tombsfor Jonah, Nahum, Daniel and Ezekiel are all in Iraq.The Apostle Thomas is believed to be the first con-veyer of Christianity to Iraq. Throughout the earliestcenturies of the faith, the church in Iraq played asignificant role in the development of Christianity.

Living on the Edge of Extinction

The Saint Hormizo Monastery, a 7th Century Monastery, 13 miles from IS controlled territory. Many of the historic religiousand cultural sites have been under threat of IS.

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Today, the Christian community in Iraq is primarilycomprised of Chaldean Catholics, the SyriacCatholic Church, and, to a lesser extent, evangelicaland Pentecostal groups. Though numerically small,the Christian community in Iraq has a significant cul-tural heritage that pre-dates Islam and whose sur-vival matters in the development of an inclusive andstable larger society.

Today, this small community is living on the edge ofextinction as involuntary nomads in their own land.

The Christian community in Iraq is one of the mosthistorically peaceful groups there. There are noknown examples of Christians committing violentacts of terrorism, nor are there are any Christianwarlords. The unfortunate irony is that this lack ofviolence committed by Christians in Iraq makesthem one of the easiest communities to politicallysideline in a country often governed by sectarianaggression. As the BBC noted, “The conflict in Iraq isoften framed as a struggle between Shias and Sun-nis and Arabs and Kurds – but the country is hometo a number of minority groups who find themselvescaught in the violence and political bargains beyondtheir control.”4

Religious scholars Noel Davis and Martin Conwaywrite, “The history of Christianity in the region hashad to do with persecution and movement as muchas with ancient roots and traditions, with ecclesialcenters, for example, having to be transferred fromone location to another because of harassment, divi-sion within traditions, and inter-religious conflict – apattern that, in many ways, still continues amidst thecontinuing turmoil and tension of the region.” 5

In 1944, a Polish-Jewish lawyer named RaphaelLemkin coined the word genocide to describe theNazi policies aimed at the destruction of EuropeanJews. The international community would furtherdefine the term (in December 1948) through TheConvention on the Prevention and Punishment ofthe Crime of Genocide as:

“Any of the following acts committed with intent todestroy, in whole or in part, a national ethnical, racialor religious group, as such: killing members of thegroup; causing serious bodily or mental harm tomembers of the group; deliberately inflicting on thegroup conditions of life calculated to bring about itsphysical destruction in whole or in part; imposingmeasures intended to prevent births within thegroup; [and] forcibly transferring children of thegroup to another group.”

There is mounting evidence that the Islamic State iscommitting genocide against the religious and ethnic minority communities in Iraq.

IS has kidnapped and forcibly transferred the chil-dren of Christians and Yezidis, including children asyoung as seven months.

Yezidis are consistently targeted for their faith.Young women are captured, sold for as little as $20and forced into compulsory marriages with mem-bers of the Islamic State. Yezidi men are killed. Thereare unverified reports of mass graves near SinjarMountain following an IS slaughter of Yezidi men.

Said one Yezidi leader who fled from IS:

IS told us the problem was our religion, so that evenif we run away to Kurdistan [the Kurds] will join [IS]and kill us because we are not Muslims. So we aretold to just convert and join IS. Some [Yezidis] didconvert. The majority of them refused and so theywere transferred from Iraq to Syria and used asgoods. IS wanted to kill all of the Yezidi people… [IS]says we are non-believers. But we want to be humanand have human rights. We have no honor. We’velost our mothers and sisters.

An 18-year-old girl (who had hoped to become adoctor before her capture and forced marriage to amember of IS) described it this way:

Members of IS were always talking bad words aboutthe Yezidi religion. They were always insulting us. Wehave no idea how we are going to again live with[the neighbors who joined in with IS]. We want to beaway from these extreme groups… What I hope isthat [you] will save our Yezidi girls and to give ussome rights so that we can live in peace. Becauseover here we are not living in peace… We have no fu-ture. I was in my last year of high school… But afterwhat happened to us I lost my school. I lost my fu-ture.

Another Yezidi leader pleaded:

We ask the International Court to put this as a crimeagainst the people who have helped IS commitgenocide against the Yezidis and who have chasedthe Christians from their cities.

After IS seized Mosul, one Christian husband at-tempted to take his wife of 28 years to Mosul so thatshe could continue to receive treatment for breastcancer. When they arrived at the hospital, they weremet by an IS guard who refused to allow them en-

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trance because they were Christian. They were toldthat the price for entrance and medical treatmentwas conversion to Islam. The wife responded:

I am not going to leave the cross of Christ. I will notabandon it. For me, a love of life is not as importantas the faith. The desire to go on living is not as im-portant as my faith.

The couple – a construction worker and his wife –returned to their small village about 16 miles away.Ten days later, she passed away with her husbandand 19 year old and 8 year old sons at her bedside.

According to the husband her last words were:

I am going to hold onto the cross of Christ. I refuseto convert. I prefer death. I prefer death to abandon-ing my religion and my faith.

She was 45.

A Bishop displaced from Mosul implored:

Does the American government recognize the thou-sands of years of heritage displaced in one day? ...Does the media cover the burning of the churches?

He continued:

This is not just the end of Christianity, but the end ofour ethnicity who have lived here for thousands ofyears. We believe this is genocide… We do not haveopportunities for education. We do not have oppor-tunities for work. We do not have opportunities forhealthcare. What is left for us?

A Catholic sister lamented, “It is a genocide. Ourpeople have been hurt psychologically, emotionally,and spiritually.”

The Islamic State’s desecration and destruction ofhistoric sites of religious and cultural heritage is un-precedented in Iraq. In Mosul, IS has turned an 800-year-old house of worship into a place of torture.Another church in Mosul that has existed for 150years is being utilized as a prison, and yet another isserving as a weapons storehouse. Churches are fre-quently stripped of their crosses and statuessmashed.

Evidence regarding genocide has not yet been fully-documented. If the Islamic State achieves its statedgoals – capturing large swaths of the Middle East,restoring the caliphate, and strictly enforcing Shari’alaw on all under its rule – the specter of full-scalegenocide once again looms large.

Yonadam Kanna, President of the Assyrian Demo-cratic Movement believes recent events are “a proxywar” and that “we (Christians) are the victims.”

The United Nations High Commissioner for HumanRights, Navi Pillay, has characterized the IslamicState as having carried out “widespread ethnic andreligious cleansing” which would amount to “crimesagainst humanity.” She noted:

The violations include targeted killings, forced con-versions, abductions, trafficking, slavery, sexualabuse, destruction of places of religious and culturalsignificance, and the besieging of entire communi-ties because of ethnic, religious or sectarian affilia-tion. Among those directly targeted have beenChristians, Yezidi, Shabaks, Turkomen, Kaka’e andSabaens.6

As the world commemorates the 70th anniversary ofthe liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz, dowe want another such genocide to take place on ourwatch?

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In addition to the moral imperative to act in the faceof such wanton evil, the destruction of ancient faithcommunities, who, for centuries, have been part ofthe fabric of the Middle East (and Iraq in particular),has grave implications for international security andthe prospect of pluralism in the broader Middle East.

We propose the following six recommendations:

First, support the establishment of a Nineveh PlainsProvince uniquely designed for Christians, Yezidisand other besieged minorities. Despite the horrorsthey face, the majority of the religious and ethnicminorities want to remain as productive and peace-ful citizens within Iraq and their historic homelands.One Iraqi priest implored, “Help me to stay.” Will hiscry fall on deaf ears or will policymakers and peopleof good will be propelled to act?

This province should be uniquely designed to ensurethe ongoing peace and stability of the ethnic andreligious minorities of Iraq. Aside from a direct endto the Islamic State itself, the establishment of thisprovince was the number one request of the Chris-tian and Yezidi communities interviewed by 21Wilberfore. Policymakers should make the establish-ment of such a province a central component of theeffort to defeat and counter IS, and work with thecentral government in Baghdad and the KRG towardthis end.

Second, support the newly created Nineveh Protec-tion Unit (NPU) as a national guard capable of de-fending a Nineveh Plains Province. The religious andethnic minority communities no longer trust eitherthe Iraqi army or the Peshmerga forces, given thereality that both fled and abandoned these commu-nities in the face of IS attack. As one religious leadernoted about Christian refugees in Jordan, Lebanonand Turkey, “They have no hope to come back here.They lost trust with the p eople here because theypromised to protect us but they did not do this.What will we see when we go to our homes? Rub-bish. Will we be resettled? Will we be marginalized?We do not know.”

A Yezidi leader implored:

As non-Muslim minorities, we are asking for safehaven and international protection units to save ourpeople as Christians and Yezidis. We do not feelsafe. We cannot protect ourselves as we are a differ-ent religion than others… The non-Muslim minoritiesdo not have anyone to protect us.

Funding, technical support and training a nationalguard (that includes members of the religious andethnic minority communities and is geared towardsdefense) will help secure the Nineveh PlainsProvince and ensure the long-term viability of theseessential and all-too-often overlooked communities.

This is in line with Section 1236 of the United StatesNational Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year2015 that allows for as much as $1.6 billion to bespent on local Iraqi security forces. The accompa-nying joint explanatory statement further noted thatthese funds should support “local forces that arecommitted to protecting highly vulnerable ethnicand religious minority communities in the NinevehPlain and elsewhere.”

Third, policymakers and other stakeholders shouldbegin to press the Iraqi central government and theKurdistan Regional Government to guarantee thatany property confiscated by IS, including homes andplaces of worship, will be returned to its rightfulowner once these lands are liberated. One displacedCatholic sister reflecting on what has happened tothe Christian towns and villages captured by IS said:

Even now we do not know what has happened. Wedo not know if everything has been taken. We havebeen told that our possessions were stolen and soldin the market, but we do not know. If it is true, wedo not know how we are going to start over again,building from the beginning…. What is really makingpeople so tired, drained of energy and making themleave their country is this war is not fought between[anonymous] people but some of [those] who at-tacked us were our neighbors. We knew them. Someof them had eaten [at] our table or had been in ourclassroom.

Significant reconciliation efforts will be essential toheal the gaping sectarian divide in Iraq. Policymak-ers should begin working with the central Iraqi gov-ernment to create a mechanism for adjudication andcompensation of destroyed property. This mecha-nism could be administered by the central govern-ment but funded by the international community.

Fourth, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG)efforts to build a context of civil discourse, freedomof religion, human rights protections and the inclu-sion of all minorities should be strengthened andencouraged. More than any other government entityin Iraq, the KRG has been the most vocal and sup-portive of these endeavors. At the local level, how-ever, trust in these pledges has been lost in recent

Recommendations

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months, and significant efforts are needed to repairthis situation.

Fifth, ongoing and immediate humanitarian aid andassistance is crucial. In addition to supporting thework of the United Nations, other on-the-groundgroups such as Samaritan’s Purse and the Iraqi Do-minican Sisters of St. Catherine of Sienna should befunded.

Two areas warrant particular attention in this in-crease of assistance. The first is education – many ofthe displaced religious and ethnic minority commu-nities are now in Kurdistan, but historically do notuse the Kurdish language in their education. It istherefore not feasible to integrate these childreninto local educational establishments. If the meansfor educating these children are not established,there will be grave consequences for an entire gen-eration of religious and ethnic minorities.

The second area is that of healthcare. There arehuge physical and psychological healthcare chal-lenges now facing the displaced. Many of the dis-placed have experienced severe trauma and are inneed of culturally appropriate psychological assis-tance. In addition, the KRG should be encouraged tobuild a process that allows for the faster and moreefficient testing and transference of medical sup-plies from Erbil to elsewhere. The current mecha-nisms are creating a bottleneck that seriouslyimpacts the health of these abandoned religious andethnic minorities.

Sixth, it is incumbent upon the United Nations, theInternational Criminal Court, the United States De-partment of State and any other relevant party touse whatever mechanisms are most appropriate toswiftly investigate, document and prosecute the Is-lamic State and its leadership for crimes against hu-manity, war crimes and should it be determined –genocide.

References1 “Terror’s New Headquarters: Iraq’s Second City Has Fallen to a Group that Wants to Create a State from which to Wage

Jihad around the World,” The Economist (June 14, 2014) http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21604160-iraqs-sec-ond-city-has-fallen-group-wants-create-state-which-wage-jihad.

2 Liz Sly and Ahmed Ramadan, “Insurgents Seize Iraqi City of Mosul as Security Forces Flee,” The Washington Post (June10, 2014) http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/insurgents-seize-iraqi-city-of-mosul-as-troops-flee/2014/06/10/21061e87-8fcd-4ed3-bc94-0e309af0a674_story.html

3 Nina Shea, “Christians on the Run from Iraq: The Islamic State is Attaining its Key Goal, and U.S. Media Find the Story of‘Limited Interest,’” National Review Online (December 24, 2014) http://m.nationalreview.com/article/395244/christians-run-iraq-nina-shea/page/0/1.

4 Mina al-Lami, “Iraq: The Minorities of Nineveh,” BBC Monitoring (July 21, 2014) http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28351073

5 Noel Davis and Martin Conway, World Christianity in the 20th Century (London: SCM Press, 2008), 92.

6 “Iraqi Civilians Suffering ‘Horrific’ Widespread and Systemic Persecution,” United Nations Office of the High Commis-sioner for Human Rights (August 25, 2014)http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14961&LangID=E.

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