Iraqi refugees find peace and security in Canada

The 2003 Iraq War shut down Anoosh Awades’ family jewellery store. To make a living, the Armenian woman found a housekeeping job, working for the Americans. Like many Christians in Iraq, she was deemed a traitor and became the subject of threats and harassments by Iraqi insurgents. Just a week ago, a terror attack killed 58 Christians and wounded 75 others at a Baghdad church.

One day in March 2006, four masked men broke into her Baghdad home and raped her.

They said “If you don’t leave, we’ll kill your husband and (three) sons,” recalled Awades, 56, whose family resettled in Toronto in 2008 through a private sponsorship after two years of exile in Syria (...)