“'The central government is to blame. It has not fulfilled its commitment to the people. The government in Baghdad received a lot of help from the international community for the displaced people from Mosul and Nineveh – but there has been no sign of it here.”
"Archbishop Warda added that the regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan – of which Erbil is the capital – had made it clear that it is unable to offer financial assistance because it had ceased receiving subsidies from the national authorities.
"Christians' concerns about the Iraqi national government, and their more positive relationship with the Iraqi Kurdish government, are not new, however.
"The Islamic State, a militant Sunni Islamist organization, was early this year among the rebels fighting in the Syrian civil war, but it spread its operations to Iraq in the spring, and took control of Mosul and swaths of territory in north and west Iraq in June.
"In mid-July, the Islamic State effectively expelled thousands of Christians, Yazidis, and Shia Muslims from its territory, which it declared to be a caliphate..."