Four Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena are providing about 1,500 displaced Catholics with shelter, food, hygiene and water. The people fled from Mosul, Qaraqosh and Bartella, Christian towns in northern Iraq overrun by the Islamist extremists in early August. The tent camp was ravaged by cold rainy weather in late October, so families now shelter inside and around a youth sports center in a Christian enclave of Irbil.
Two Iraqi nuns and three orphans kidnapped in late June have been released safely, according to the Christian rights group Middle East Concern. The group, citing Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako, said the five were released July 14 without anyone paying ransom
