The woman's killing in a public square was the cruelest moment in the descent of this once proud city.

“I am very aware that my ethnicity is dying.”

The Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan said he was horrified to see widespread devastation and what he called “ghost towns” during a recent visit to northern Iraq. He said by email that there was little left in some of the communities that he toured on Nov. 27-29 and that

Deep inside Syria, a bishop worked around the blurred edges of international law to save the lives of more than 200 people.

They "pray, pray" that family members can get out of northern Iraq before a major Islamic State attack.

Being the only Chaldean Catholic priest in charge of pastoral work in Turkey, Father Adday is a road warrior who logs thousands of miles meeting Iraqi Christian refugees in Turkey.