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IRAQ, 2013. The Iraqi refugee and internally displaced crisis began in 2006, when the country's main political factions started a religious conflict. The main one was unleashed between Shia and Sunni groups. Iraqi minorities, including Christians, Turkmen, Kurds, Shabak, Yazidi, Sabean-Mandeans, Palestinians, were immediately overwhelmed and in a few years 4 million internally displaced persons and refugees left their homes and moved to the north of the country, the neighboring states (Jordan, Syria), Europe and the United States. Mono-confessional areas have formed in a country that for centuries has been multi-community and multi-confessional. Iraqi Christians, in particular, have taken refuge in the north of the country where they have been. Some have been welcomed in Kurdistan and in the Ninewa plain. The attacks on Christian churches in Baghdad at the end of October 2010 reopened the crisis and in a few days at least 700 families left Baghdad towards the north. The persecutions hit the churches and families and the Christian community of the city of Quaraquos.
Iraq, Kirkuk
