MANCHESTER, England - A typical day for many Iraqi Christians encamped at Ankawa, near Irbil, would probably involve another round of struggle against desperation, frustration, anxiety, boredom and fear.

It is unacceptable that Canada has a backlog of almost 21,000 sponsored refugees waiting to see if they can come to this country, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander told The Catholic Register.

The crisis in Iraq and Syria is pushing Canada to accept more refugees. Canada will take another 5,000 Iraqis and Iranians from refugee camps in Turkey in coming months and years, said Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander.

MANCHESTER, England - A group of 11 sick, disabled and elderly Iraqi Christians — including an 80-year-old woman with breast cancer — defied terrorists who ordered them to convert to Islam or be beheaded, saying they preferred death to giving up their faith.

OTTAWA - Canadian Catholic charitable agencies have put out urgent appeals for assistance to help Iraqi Christians fleeing for their lives from Islamist extremists from the Islamic State (ISIS}.

BEIRUT - The memory of that brutal June evening in his home near Mosul, Iraq, brought 48-year-old Joseph, now a refugee in Lebanon, to tears.

WASHINGTON - From the head of the U.S. agency in charge of the welfare of more than 50,000 Central American children who have been apprehended at the Mexican border, to the Honduran cardinal who heads the international Catholic relief agency, Caritas, the message was clear, those minors are as much refugees as the people fleeing upheaval in Syria or South Sudan.

Providing care and showing compassion for society’s most vulnerable members is not an option. It’s an obligation. So says Pope Francis and the Federal Court of Canada.

Sam is a refugee from Pakistan and a cancer survivor thanks to Church fundraisers and the generosity of doctors and hospitals working for free. He said he thanked God when the Federal Court ruled on July 4 that he is now entitled to health coverage from the federal government.

AMMAN, Jordan - Thousands of Iraqi Christians who fled recent shelling by extremist militants and sought refuge in the neighboring autonomous Kurdistan region are now returning home, said a Catholic archbishop responsible for their care.

Despite committing Canada’s churches and volunteers, unasked, to welcoming 1,100 Syrian refugees before the end of this year, Citizenship and Immigration Canada has so far received just 145 applications to sponsor Syrian refugees. None of them have reached Canadian soil. 

On the eve of the annual June 20 World Refugee Day, Citizenship and Immigration Canada quietly announced changes to immigration rules that refugee sponsors say will tear apart refugee families who hope to restart their lives in Canada.

AMMAN, Jordan - Desperate to reunite with family in Europe, a young Syrian refugee recently paid thousands of dollars to a human trafficker to help him and his brother travel abroad. Instead, the pair found themselves tricked, half-way on the opposite side of the world — in China.

AMMAN, Jordan - A steady stream of Iraqi refugees, smiling and displaying purple index fingers, emerged from a polling station in the Hashemi Shamali district, where the majority of these urban refugees live in the Jordanian capital.

The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace is funnelling aid to its Caritas partners to respond to frigid winter temperatures in the Mideast that  have hit an estimated two million Syrians displaced by the country's civil war and hundreds of thousands of refugees outside of Syria's borders.