Advertisement

Iraq Upheaval Spurs Migrant Crisis

46:55
Download Audio
Resume

With guest host Jane Clayson.

Fresh upheaval in Iraq. Millions now displaced. Warnings of crisis and worse to come.

raqi security forces and allied Shiite militiamen prepare to attack Islamic State extremists in Tikrit, 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March 31, 2015.  (AP)
Iraqi security forces and allied Shiite militiamen prepare to attack Islamic State extremists in Tikrit, 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March 31, 2015. (AP)

Sometimes the story behind the story needs a lot more attention than it gets. And that’s the case now in Iraq. We’ve watched since last summer the advance of ISIS as it swept east from Syria into Iraq.  he black flags, the beheadings, the collapse of the Iraqi army. Now the pushback, with the help of Iran on the ground and the US in the air. But almost overlooked are the millions of Iraqis who had to flee all that fighting. And all those refugees, all those lost towns, a whole other layer of despair and challenge. This hour, On Point: Iraq’s surge of refugees.
-- Jane Clayson

Guests

Matt Bradley, Middle East correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. (@mattmcbradley)

Daryl Grisgraber, senior advocate for the Middle East at Refugees International. (@dgrisgraber)

Maria Fantappie, senior analyst for Iraq at the International Crisis Group. (@mariafantappie)

From The Reading List

The Wall Street Journal: Iraq Fighting Triggers Humanitarian Crisis Near Baghdad — "Fighting between Islamic State and Iraqi security forces has displaced at least 90,000 civilians in the past several days, the United Nations said on Sunday, as a new humanitarian crisis unfolded on the fringes of the capital."

Reuters: With Shi’ite militia victory over Islamic State in Tikrit, Iraq still loses — "Here is a new Iraqi paradox: whatever progress the Shi’ite Muslim-dominated Baghdad government makes against jihadi insurgents occupying large swathes of north-western Iraq, it is simultaneously undermining what is left of the Iraqi state, whose frailty and malfunctions created the environment in which jihadism was able to surge in the first place."

BBC News: Islamic State: Militants 'kill 300 Yazidi captives' — "Several hundred Yazidi captives have been killed in Iraq by Islamic State (IS) militants west of Mosul, Yazidi and Iraqi officials say. A statement from the Yazidi Progress Party said 300 captives were killed on Friday in the Tal Afar district near the city."

This program aired on May 5, 2015.

Advertisement

More from On Point

Listen Live
Close