The mass flight and expulsion of ethnic
Assyrians from Iraq and Syria is a process which was initiated during the start of the
2003 invasion of Iraq by the
US and the
Multi-National Force and later it was initiated during the start of the
Syrian civil war and the
spillover. Leaders of Iraq's Assyrian community estimate that over two-thirds of the Iraqi Assyrian population may have fled the country or been internally displaced during the U.S.-led invasion which lasted from 2003 until 2011. Reports suggest that whole neighborhoods of Assyrians have cleared out in the cities of
Baghdad and
Basra, and that Sunni insurgent groups and militias have threatened Assyrian Christians. Following the campaign of the
Islamic State in northern Iraq in August 2014, one quarter of the remaining Assyrians fled the jihadists, finding refuge in neighboring countries.
Northern Iraq (2014) After the
fall of Mosul, IS demanded that Assyrian Christians living in the city
convert to Islam, pay
jizyah, or face execution, by July 19, 2014. IS leader
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi further noted that Christians who do not agree to follow those terms must "leave the borders of the Islamic Caliphate" within a specified deadline. A church mass was not held in Mosul for the first time in nearly 2 millennia. In October 2014, a release put out by the
Assyrian International News Agency stated that 200,000 Assyrians had been driven from their homes by the violence and become displaced. IS has already set similar rules for Christians living in other cities and towns, including its
de facto capital
Raqqa. IS had also been seen marking Christian homes with the letter
nūn for
Nassarah ("Cultural Christian"). Several religious buildings were seized and subsequently demolished, most notably
Mar Behnam Monastery. By August 7, IS captured the primarily
Assyrian towns of
Qaraqosh,
Tel Keppe,
Bartella, and
Karamlish, prompting the residents to flee. More than 100,000 Iraqi Christians were forced to flee their homes and leave all their property behind after IS invaded Qaraqosh and surrounding towns in the
Nineveh Plains Province of Iraq.
Libya (2015) On February 12, 2015, the IS released a report in their online magazine
Dabiq showing photos of 21 Egyptian
Copts migrant workers that they had kidnapped in the city of
Sirte, Libya, and whom they threatened to kill to "avenge the [alleged] kidnapping of Muslim women by the Egyptian Coptic Church". The men, who came from different villages in Egypt, 13 of them from Al-Our,
Minya Governorate, were kidnapped in Sirte in two separate attacks on December 27, 2014, and in January 2015.
Syria (2015) In February 2015, in response to a major Kurdish offensive in the
Al-Hasakah Governorate, IS abducted 150
Assyrians from villages near
Tell Tamer in northeastern Syria, after launching a large offensive in the region. According to US diplomat Alberto M. Fernandez, of the 232 of the Assyrians kidnapped in the IS attack on the Assyrian Christian farming villages on the banks of the
Khabur River in Northeast Syria, 51 were children and 84 were women. "Most of them remain in captivity, with one account claiming that ISIS is demanding $22 million (or roughly $100,000 per person) for their release." On 8 October 2015, IS released a video showing three of the Assyrian men kidnapped in Khabur being murdered. It was reported that 202 of the 253 kidnapped Assyrians were still in captivity, each one with a demanded ransom of $100,000.
Egypt (2018) On 2 November 2018, Islamic State gunmen killed at least seven Coptic Christian pilgrims in Egypt on Friday and wounded at least 16 in an attack. In April 2021, Islamic State gunmen executed a Christian businessman who was kidnapped in Egypt's
Sinai. ==Reactions==