{"id":2607,"date":"2016-03-18T16:34:06","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T16:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/?p=2607"},"modified":"2016-03-19T20:19:12","modified_gmt":"2016-03-19T20:19:12","slug":"kurdistan-refugees-home-from-a-battle-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/2016\/03\/18\/kurdistan-refugees-home-from-a-battle-zone\/","title":{"rendered":"Kurdistan &#8211; Refugee&#8217;s Home In A Battle Zone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/kurdish-woman-child-e1458402923322.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1677\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1677 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/kurdish-woman-child-e1458402923322.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"530\" height=\"283\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe lived our entire lives in Mosul &#8211; the ancient city of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nineveh\" target=\"_blank\">Nineveh<\/a> &#8211; Jews, Christians, Muslims all side by side in peace. Then entered ISIS, threatening us with death or conversion.&#8221; The woman began swelling up with tears. &#8220;We were forced to flee, leaving all our belongings behind \u2013 animals, cars, clothes, books \u2013 and traveled by foot to Kurdistan. Here we are treated with great kindness; given a home, a place to worship, without threat. Thanks to God for the kindness of Kurds!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This month I&#8217;m enjoying the hospitality of Lawand Talal, a Kurdish attorney who advocates for refugees in Kurdistan on behalf of UNHCR: The United Nations High Commission on Refugees. After 300 cups of tea, I am appreciating first hand how complex are the conflicting agendas of the powers in this region. But was is abundantly clear is that the people afflicted &#8211; mainly Syrians and Iraqis &#8211; overwhelming want simply to return and to live in peace. Refuge offered in neighboring Kurdistan, Greece, or the United States is admirable, but does not address their deepest desire: home.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; \u201cWe lived our entire lives in Mosul &#8211; the ancient city of Nineveh &#8211; Jews, Christians, Muslims all side by side in peace. Then entered ISIS, threatening us with death or conversion.&#8221; The woman began swelling up with tears. &#8220;We were forced to flee, leaving all our belongings behind \u2013 animals, cars, clothes, books [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-health-news-inspiration","category-international-public-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}