Category: Victims Voices

from Cathy Breen, May 6, 2015, Cankiri, Turkey Dear Friends, As I write I am looking out a bus window at a beautiful landscape of rolling hills and mountains. Everything is green, and the trees are budding. It is hard to know where to begin. In the past week, I have traveled hundreds of miles by bus and train in order to visit Iraqi refugees living here. Eskisehir, Ankara, Bolu, Mersin and now Cankiri. Some of the families are refugees

from Cathy Breen, Erbil, Kurdistan, Northern Iraq, April 28, 2015 Dear Friends, Each year Catholics read from the Book of Acts in the period following the Easter celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. This morning’s reading speaks of “those who had been scattered by the persecution.” Over a span of more than eight years, I had ample opportunity as Voices for Creative Nonviolence to meet many Iraqi Christian refugees in Jordan and Syria. I was often gripped by their stories,

from Cathy Breen, Karbala, Iraq, April 23, 2015 Dear Friends, As I attempt a first writing for this trip to Iraq, Kurdistan and Turkey, I ask myself if there is a salient theme, or themes, emerging. Perhaps they would be: family, war and refugees. I am presently in Karbala which is housing approximately 70.000 refugees, the majority from Nineveh (Mosel) and Anbar. As I traveled by car two days ago from Najaf to Karbala, the road was lined with makeshift