Recent events in Iraq, especially those which surfaced between January and March of 2014 calling for an autonomous or independent state in the Nineveh province of the country, have brought the minority issue and the Assyrians closer to the spotlight. In theory, the province could become a bastion for the ethnic and religious minorities who have become the last living link to ancient Mesopotamia in a period where their numbers have drastically decreased due to displacement, war, immigration, economic hardship, and ethno-religious and political discrimination. Demographic change would speak to that reality as the overall population of Christians, the overwhelming majority of whom are of Assyrian descent, decreased from 1.4 million in 1987 to approximately 750,000, or 3 per cent of the Iraqi population, by 2005, according to the United States Department of State. In the 1980s they made up roughly 30 per cent of the population of the northern regions of Iraq and there were approximately 700,000 more living in diaspora. Between 2005 and 2014 many continued to find themselves part of a disproportionate number of internally displaced persons with little hope of an end to their plight.

On 10 June 2014 the group known originally as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant/Syria (ISIL/ISIS) and later simply as IS, began to take control of Mosul, marking Christian houses with the Arabic letter N for Nazarene/Christian. Those who could not pay the Islamic tax or jizya were forced to convert or flee.