Weam Namou

Iraqi Americans Weam Namou

In Witnessing a Genocide, Weam Namou shares her visit to Iraq in 2000, a journey where she embraced Easter with relatives, remembered her magical childhood in Baghdad, and enjoyed her ancestors' town of Telkaif in Mosul. The trip, held dear to her heart and preserved through pictures of extravagant picnics, tours of ancient monasteries and other lively explorations, is soon drowned by the events that follow the 2003 US-led invasion.

Like the rest of the Iraqi American community, Namou watches from a distance the destruction and devastation befalling her birth country. The violence and persecution of Iraqi Christians causes most of her relatives still living in Iraq to flee. The emergence of the Islamic State further ravages this community. But Iraqi Christians are not the only targets. Over three million Iraqis, of different ethnic and religious background, have been displaced by the conflict in Iraq since January 2014.