[2] The Guardian published that the violence faced by Assyrians has led to a drop in their numbers in Iraq from at least 800,000 in 2003 to 400,000 in 2011.
[3] The 2009 Catholic Almanac puts the numbers much higher—a drop from 1.5 million mostly Assyrians in Iraq in 2003 to just 500,000 in 2009.
[5] A similar percentage of the 1.6 million internally displaced within Iraq in 2007 were likely Assyrians, many of whom had fled Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul to the relatively stable Kurdistan Region.
By early August 2004 this persecution included church bombings, and fundamentalist groups' enforcement of Muslim codes of behavior upon Christians, e.g., banning alcohol, forcing women to wear hijab.
[9][10][11] By 2011, a large number of Assyrians had found refuge in their villages in Nineveh Plains and the Kurdistan Region.