It’s an exciting time for EPIC’s mission of peace in Iraq. We just opened an office in Erbil in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq as we join a multi-organizational USAID effort to support the safe and voluntary return of displaced Iraqis to their homes in Ninewa Province. Through the project, we are determined to help […]
Category: Research & Advocacy
Interview with Yazidi Activist Hazim Avdal on Post-Genocide Peace and Justice
In 2014, the Iraqi Yazidi community, a small ethno-religious minority residing mostly in the area of Sinjar, a mountainous region in Ninewa, northwestern Iraq, was subjected to a campaign of massacres, mass kidnappings and enslavement of women, boys and girls at the hands of ISIS. Between 2,000-5,000 Yazidis lost their lives and about 6,000 […]
We Are Together
With the stroke of a pen last Friday, President Trump signed an ill-conceived Executive Order that attacks the very foundations of who we are as a nation.
Fallujah Occupation Timeline, 2015-2016
This timeline contains chronological reports of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) occupation of Fallujah, with a focus on humanitarian concerns, food insecurity, and civilian resistance to occupying ISIS forces. While the majority of these reports come from our weekly Iraq Security and Humanitarian Monitor publication, several supplementary reports have been added as […]
ISIS’s Chemical Weapons Attack on Civilians in Iraq: an Eyewitness Report on the Aftermath
Within days of the 28th anniversary of the chemical weapons attack on the residents of Halabja in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region – which a 1991 Human Rights Watch investigation called “the single largest chemical weapons attack against a civilian population in the world” – we are monitoring reports of chemical weapons once again being used against […]
The Power of Empathy and Advocacy
“I have long said that Americans are the most generous people in the world. But we do have the shortest attention spans. And when it comes to global crises today, I fear that too many in the United States believe that we can insulate ourselves from the world’s problems and leave it to the countries […]
President Obama Sits Down with Prime Minister Abadi in the Oval Office
On Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi met in the Oval Office. Both leaders expressed their commitment to a robust relationship between the two countries, emphasizing priorities for continued cooperation. Several of these priorities reflect the progress that Haider al-Abadi has made in improving governance in his first eight months […]
The Promise of Reform: Haider al-Abadi’s First Eight Months as Prime Minister of Iraq
By Alec Lynde In a hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on February 25, 2015, Secretary of State John Kerry offered his remarks on Iraq’s new central government, led by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi: Part of the problem in Iraq was the sectarianism that the former prime minister had embraced, which was dividing his […]
Mental Health in Iraq: Misunderstood & Marginalized
Mental illness and Psychiatry are both frontier areas of medicine and are still gaining ground in both developed and developing nations. In Iraq, an estimated 18.6% of the population suffers from mental illness, that is 5.9 million people. WHO estimates that mental illness is the fourth leading cause of poor health for Iraqis over 5 years […]
Top 10 Misconceptions on the Iraq Crisis
The advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in Iraq and corresponding events, along with ISIS’s effective use of social media, have given rise to narratives across the world of media. Some of those narratives are thoughtless overreactions to the sudden appearance of ISIS on the world stage, a story that has […]