Country: Iraq

Group: Chaldeans

Date Finalized: Nov, 23 2021

Team: Victoria Fuller & Johanna McCombs (leads), Gabriel Cardenas, Nichole Dahlen, Ann Thomas, Hannah Goldman, Deneb Bobadilla, Nuri Son, and Li-Chen Hou

In Iraq, Chaldeans are a religiously defined minority group who are adherents to the Chaldean Catholic Church, a denomination of the Eastern Catholic Church (MRG, 2017). There were approximately 1.4 million Chaldeans in Iraq before the U.S led invasion of Iraq in 2003 (Kuriakuz, 2014). Historically, Chaldeans in Iraq have been centered near Mosul in the Nineveh region. In 1932, 70 percent of Iraqi Christians lived in Mosul, but by 1957 only 40 percent of Iraqi Christians reside there (Minority Rights Group International, 2015).

After the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, radical Islamic groups targeted Chaldeans in violent attacks. Militants bombed Chaldean churches in 2004, 2006, and 2012 (MRG, 2017). Radicals kidnapped and killed the Chaldean archbishop of Mosul in 2008 (MRG, 2017). In 2014, ISIS began targeting Christian Iraqis including the Chaldeans as a part of an ethnic cleansing campaign (Kuriakuz, 2014). The spread of ISIS in 2014 caused many Chaldeans to flee Mosul. ISIS forced Chaldeans to convert to Islam, pay a fine, or die if they remained in Mosul. Chaldeans still face ongoing discrimination and violence in Baghdad (Minority Rights Group International, 2015). Currently, Arabization has also compelled Chaldeans to assimilate into Arab culture in order to avoid further violence and persecution (Donabed, 2010).

            The evidence suggests that Iraqi Chaldeans have faced systematic ethnocide at the hands of the ISIS in the recent past. The overall data quality is medium (2/3), with many sources discussing the issue.

Sources

  1. Donabed, S. (2010). Iraq and the Assyrian unimagining: Illuminating scaled suffering and a hierarchy of genocide from Simele to Anfal (thesis). University of Toronto, Toronto.
  2. Kuriakuz, J. P. (2014, August 24). Iraq’s Chaldeans Still Exist—For Now. Wall Street Journal. https://online.wsj.com/articles/john-paul-kuriakuz-iraqs-chaldeans-still-existfor-now-1408919983
  3. Minority Rights Group. (2017, November). Chaldeans. Minority Rights Group International. https://minorityrights.org/minorities/chaldeans/