Being a non-Muslim in Turkey is extremely difficult. While non-Muslims accounted for around 30 percent of the country's population before 1914, the presence of these ancient peoples, whose roots in this region predate the arrival of the Turks and Muslims, has dwindled to a tiny fraction of the population, as reflected in demographic statistics.
October 31 marks the 16th anniversary of the massacre at the Syriac Catholic Church of Our Lady of Deliverance in Baghdad, one of the deadliest attacks against Christians in Iraq during years of violence and political and security instability.
This is an invitation to explore the Syriac tradition of Christianity. The Syriac communities form one of the three historic traditions of the Church, of which the others are the Greek and the Latin. The Syriac language is a branch of Aramaic, the Semitic language spoken by Jesus and then used in the Syrian Church of the East, which grew in what is now Iraq and eastern Turkey.
According to a report by Christian Solidarity International (CSI), Christians and other minorities are at greater risk of being killed or abducted under the Syrian Transitional Government led by Ahmed al-Sharaa. The transitional government replaced the 54-year-old-dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad when it collapsed in December 2024.
The state of Assyrian language education in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) has returned to the forefront following a visit by a delegation from the Assyrian Writers and Authors Union to the General Directorate of Education in the Soran Independent Administration.
Years after violence forced Christian families from Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, some of those displaced say repeated government promises have failed to give them enough confidence to return, leaving families still living with the physical, financial and emotional consequences of displacement.