Iraqis in Greece
The Iraqi Arabs who arrived in Greece are Muslims from the central and southern parts of Iraq, mostly Sunni with a tiny Shia minority. Sunni Arabs form 17 per cent of the total Iraqi population, which is almost an equal amount if not more than their Turkmen counterparts. Assyrians have a disproportionately large representation amongst Iraqis in Greece, this could be primarily because Greece has a Christian society, in which Iraqi Christians will find it easy to settle down in. Forming a quarter of the population in Greece, Iraqi Christians make up the majority of Christians from the Middle East, who arrived in Greece from the early 1990s.
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Amnesty International has held ISIL responsible for the ethnic cleansing of ethnic and religious minority groups in northern Iraq on a "historic scale", putting entire communities "at risk of being wiped off the map of Iraq". In a special report released on 2 September 2014, the organization described how ISIL had "systematically targeted non-Arab and non-Sunni Muslim communities, killing or abducting hundreds, possibly thousands, of individuals and forcing more than 830,000 others to flee the areas it has captured since 10 June 2014". Among these people were Assyrian Christians, Turkmen Shia, Shabak Shia, Kaka'i, Yazidis and Sabean Mandeans, who have lived together for centuries in Nineveh province, large parts of which have come under ISIL's control.