Country: Iraq

Group: Chaldeans

Date Finalized: 10/16/2022

Team: Kelsey Dwyer (lead), Anthony Un, Madison Schultz, Jacob Kebe, Hajer Rahee

Content Warning: Lethal violence, religious persecution, mass killings, ethnocide

Approximate Time Period: Early 2000s – present

The Chaldeans are a religious minority in Iraq holding Catholic-Christian beliefs. There were approximately 1.4 million Chaldeans in Iraq before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 (Kuriakuz, 2014). Today, only 3% of the population in Iraq is not Muslim, making Iraqi-Christians a very small portion of the Iraq population.

Due to Islamic radicalization, the Chaldeans have experienced lethal violence in the form of church bombings, assassinations, and mass shootings. The Iraq military bombed Chaldean churches in 2004 and 2008 (Minority Rights Group, 2017). In February of 2008, al-Queda abducted the Chaldean Catholic archbishop and he was later found dead in March of 2008 (AP NEWS, 2021). These targeted lethal attacks forced Chaldeans to flee the northern part of Iraq and head to Baghdad (Chaldean News, 2022). Still, two years after the assassination of the archbishop, an al-Qaeda aligned gunman killed 58 worshippers at a Christian church in Baghdad (AP NEWS, 2019).

Prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, 1.4 million Chaldeans inhabited Iraq. While there is limited reliable data on the Chaldean experience, existing evidence suggests that lethal violence and ongoing discrimination has decreased their population to only a few hundred thousand in Iraq (Minority Rights Group, 2017).

Sources

  1. AP NEWS. (2019, March 15). A look at attacks on houses of worship over last decade. Retrieved October 11th ,2022, from https://apnews.com/article/islamic-state-group-ap-top-news-al-qaida-international-news-suicide-bombings-c0aa8edf7f724a74bcb02d3f22e8f0d8
  2. AP News. (2021). A timeline of disaster and displacement for Iraqi Christians  Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-islamic-state-group-saddam-hussein-baghdad-iraq-296b5588995cf7be62b49619bf1a7bb6
  3. Minority Rights Group. (2017, November). Chaldeans. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/chaldeans/
  4. Chaldean News. (2022, June 1). Back to Iraq part II. Retrieved October 10th, 2022, from https://www.chaldeannews.com/features-1/2022/6/1/back-to-iraq-part-ii
  5. Kuriakuz, J. P. (2014, August 24). Iraq’s Chaldeans Still Exist—For Now. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved October 10th, 2022, from https://online.wsj.com/articles/john-paul-kuriakuz-iraqs-chaldeans-still-existfor-now-1408919983