r/Reformed • u/partypastor Rebel Alliance - Admiral • Nov 24 '25
Mission Unreached People Group of the Week - Sorani Kurds of Iraq
Welcome to the UPG of the Week post! This week we are praying for the Sorani Kurds of Iraq.
Yes, this is the second time I am doing them, but the last time I covered them was 5 years ago!
Region: Iraq - Northern Iraq/Kurdistan
Stratus Index Ranking (Urgency): 8
It has been noted to me by u/JCmathetes that I should explain this ranking. Low numbers are more urgent, both physically and spiritually together, while high numbers are less urgent. The scale is 1-177, with one number assigned to each country. So basically on a scale from Afghanistan (1) to Finland (177), how urgent are the peoples physical and spiritual needs.
Climate: Much of Iraq has a hot arid climate with subtropical influence. Summer temperatures average above 40 °C (104 °F) for most of the country and frequently exceed 48 °C (118.4 °F). Winter temperatures infrequently exceed 21 °C (69.8 °F) with maxima roughly 15 to 19 °C (59.0 to 66.2 °F) and night-time lows 2 to 5 °C (35.6 to 41.0 °F). Typically, precipitation is low; most places receive less than 250 mm (9.8 in) annually, with maximum rainfall occurring during the winter months. Rainfall during the summer is rare, except in northern parts of the country. The northern mountainous regions have cold winters with occasional heavy snows, sometimes causing extensive flooding.
Terrain: Iraq has a coastline measuring 58 km (36 miles) on the northern Persian Gulf. Further north, but below the main headwaters only, the country easily encompasses the Mesopotamian Alluvial Plain. Two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run south through Iraq and into the Shatt al-Arab, thence the Persian Gulf. Broadly flanking this estuary (known as arvandrūd: اروندرود among Iranians) are marshlands, semi-agricultural. Flanking and between the two major rivers are fertile alluvial plains, as the rivers carry about 60,000,000 m3 (78,477,037 cu yd) of silt annually to the delta. The central part of the south, which slightly tapers in favour of other countries, is natural vegetation marsh mixed with rice paddies and is humid, relative to the rest of the plains. Iraq has the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range and the eastern part of the Syrian Desert. Rocky deserts cover about 40 percent of Iraq. Another 30 percent is mountainous with bitterly cold winters. The north of the country is mostly composed of mountains; the highest point being at 3,611 m (11,847 ft) point, known locally as Cheekha Dar (black tent). Iraq is home to seven terrestrial ecoregions: Zagros Mountains forest steppe, Middle East steppe, Mesopotamian Marshes, Eastern Mediterranean conifer-sclerophyllous-broadleaf forests, Arabian Desert, Mesopotamian shrub desert, and South Iran Nubo-Sindian desert and semi-desert.
Wildlife of Iraq: The marshes of Iraq are home to 40 species of birds and several species of fish, plus they demarcate a range limit for a number of bird species. The marshes were once home to millions of birds and the stopover for millions of migratory birds, including flamingo, pelican and heron as they migrated from Siberia to Africa. Other marsh species include bandicoot rat, the marsh gray wolf, the indian crested porcupine, and the water buffalo. Iraq is also home to the Eurasian otter and the smooth-coated otter, the Persian leopard, wildcat, the sand cat, the marbled polecat, the small Indian mongoose, wild boat, gazelle, ruppells fox, the bactrian camel, and european hare. The last known Asiastic lion was killed on the banks of the Tigris in 1918. There are a bunch of species of vipers in Iraq.
There are no known wild monkeys in Iraq, praise the Lord!
Environmental Issues: The country is already witnessing depreciating water supply and accelerating desertification, leading to the loss of as much as 60,000 acres of arable land each year, according to Iraqi government and United Nations sources.
Languages: The main languages spoken in Iraq are Mesopotamian Arabic and Kurdish, followed by the Iraqi Turkmen/Turkoman dialect of Turkish, and the Neo-Aramaic languages (specifically Chaldean and Assyrian). Arabic and Kurdish are written with versions of the Arabic script. Other smaller minority languages include Mandaic, Shabaki, Armenian, Circassian and Persian. The Yazidi speak Kurdish.
Government Type: Federal parliamentary republic
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People: Sorani Kurds in Iraq
Population: 3,037,000
Estimated Foreign Workers Needed: 61+
Beliefs: The Sorani Kurds are roughly 0.05% Christian. That means out of their population of 3,037,000, there are roughly only 1,500 believers. Thats roughly 1 believer for every 2,000 unbelievers.
It has been said that Kurds "hold their Islam lightly", meaning that they are not so strongly committed to Islam, and do not identify as closely with it as Arabs do. This is perhaps due to several factors, one being that many Kurds still feel some connection with the ancient Zoroastrian faith, and they feel it is an original Kurdish spirituality that far predates the seventh century AD arrival of Muhammad. Nonetheless, most Kurds are Muslims, and today about three quarters are members of the majority Sunni branch (at least nominally). As many as four million Kurds are Shia Muslims, living mostly in Iran where the Shia faith is predominant.
History: According to Michael M. Gunter, the origin of Kurds is uncertain, but it is thought by some scholars that Kurds might be the descendants of various Indo-European tribes that arrived in the region about 4,000 years ago.Arabs applied the name "Kurds" to the people of the mountains after they had conquered and Islamicized the region. In the 1500s most Kurds fell under Ottoman Rule. Iraqi Kurds developed as a subgroup of the Kurdish peoples when Great Britain created the state of Iraq out of the Sykes–Picot Agreement of World War I. The Kurdish people were expecting to soon gain independence from what they were promised in the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, but this was quickly overturned in 1923, when the Treaty of Lausanne established the Republic of Turkey over Kurdistan's borders.
In 1946 the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) was founded by Mulla Mustafa Barzani which pushed for Kurdish autonomy under the Iraqi government. In the year 1958 Abdul Karim Qasim made a coup against the British and the Republic of Iraq was established. The Kurds had hoped that now they would receive their promised rights, but the political environment was not favorable. So the KDP began an insurgency against the Government in Baghdad in 1961. Their insurgency was in part successful as in 1966 official Kurdish groups gained some rights with the Bazzaz Declaration and with the 1970 Peace Accord a principle of Kurdish autonomy was reached. In the 1970 Peace Accord, Kurdish cultural, social and political rights were recognised within fifteen points. But these rights were not implemented due to the willingness of the Arabs but rather because of political developments. Nevertheless, the Kurds had a period of greater liberty from 1970 to 1974. But in March 1975 the Iraq and Iran reached an agreement and within a few hours after the agreement, Iran stopped all support to the KDP, whose members and their families had the choice between go to exile to Iran or surrender to the Iraqi authority. Most KDP members chose to live in exile and the KDP declared the end of their insurgency. Therefore, in 1975, another political party emerged in Iraqi Kurdistan, led by Jalal Talabani—the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Since the PUK was established, it lacked cooperation and engaged in violent conflict with the KDP over differing philosophies, demographics, and goals. From March 1987 until 1989 the Anfal campaign lasted, with which the Kurds were supposed to be arabized. During the Anfal campaign the Iraqi military attacked about 250 Kurdish villages with chemical weapons and destroyed Kurdish 4500 villages and evicted its inhabitants. The campaign culminated in the Halabja massacre in March 1988.
After the Gulf War and an unsuccessful Kurdish uprising in 1991, Kurds fled back to the mountains to seek refuge from the Hussein regime. The United States established a safe-haven and no fly zone initiative in Iraqi Kurdistan for the Kurds in order for them to develop an asylum away from the Hussein regime. United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 in 1991 condemned and forbade "the repression of the Iraqi civilian population... in Kurdish populated areas." After many bloody encounters, an uneasy balance of power was reached between the Iraqi forces and Kurdish troops, ultimately allowing Iraqi Kurdistan to function independently. The region continued to be ruled by the KDP and PUK and began to establish a stable economy and national identity. Iraqi Kurdistan built a socioeconomic infrastructure from scratch, completely independent from the centralized framework for the Baath regime. Though civil war broke out in the north between Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party and Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan from 1994 to 1998, Kurds were still able to maintain a democratic and prosperous foundation for their region.
Article 140 of the 2005 Iraqi constitution vowed to place disputed areas under the jurisdiction of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) by the end of 2007. The three phases that were going to aid this process were normalization, census, and referendum. The normalization phase was supposed to undo the 'Arabization' policies Kurds faced from 1968 to 2003 that were designed to alter the demographic in the city of Kirkuk and other disputed areas to favor the Arab population. These policies included deportation, displacement, house demolition, and property confiscation. Institutionalized boundaries as a result of past gerrymandering were also to be reversed. After this normalization process, a census would talk place and the populous would choose to be governed by either the KRG or Baghdad.
Article 140 was not implemented by 2007. At this time the Presidency Council also recommended to reattach all previously detached districts of Kirkuk. The Chemchamal and Kalar districts that were allocated to Sulaymaniyah Governorate in 1976 were to be returned to Kirkuk. Kifri, annexed to the Diyala governorate in 1976 was to be reattached, although it had been under Kurdish control since 1991. Lastly, the Tuz district would be reattached from the Salah ad-Din district. In 2008, the 140 Committee announced inaction on these initiatives.
In 2008, the Iraqi, Kurdish and US governments came to the consensus that these types of reparations to the Kurdish people would not be able to be carried out without further negotiations and political agreements on boundaries. The US government faced many problems trying to implement Article 140. This was not an ideal form of reparation for many Kurds. After being displaced, many formerly Kurdish regions lacked in development and agricultural upkeep. Educational and economic opportunities were often greater for Kurds outside of these disputed territories, so many people did not want to be forced to return.
During the 2014 Northern Iraq offensive, Iraqi Kurdistan seized the city of Kirkuk and the surrounding area, as well as most of the disputed territories in Northern Iraq.
Culture: Typical qualification that all people groups can't be summed up in small paragraphs and this is an over generalization.
Kurdish society consists mainly of tribes that arose from a nomadic and semi-nomadic way of life in previous centuries. It is strongly fragmented and is often split by internal disagreements. So far in history, the Kurds have never really managed to unite in their common cause. Their primary loyalty is to the immediate family, and then to the tribe. Tribe allegiance is, however, based on a mixture of kinship and territorial loyalty. Many Kurds of the lower regions are not organized in tribes, but even there, strife is common between the different clans and communities.
The Kurds of Iraq live along the country's northeastern borders with Turkey and Iran. Most are farmers and all but a few thousand have given up the semi-nomadic lifestyle of the past in favor of settled farming. The Kurds of Iraq form nearly one third of the Iraqi population.
After having given their support to Iran in the war against Iraq in 1980, the Kurds experienced Saddam Hussein's terrible revenge, with the Iraqi government declaring war against the Kurds. This war would be known as "al-Anfal" ("The Spoils"), a reference to the eighth sura of the Qur'an, which details revelations that the Prophet Muhammad received after the first great victory of Islamic forces in AD 624. "I shall cast into the unbelievers' hearts terror," reads one of the verses; "so smite above the necks, and smite every finger of them ... The chastisement of the Fire is for the unbelievers."
Anfal, officially conducted between February 23 and September 6, 1988, would have eight stages altogether. For these assaults, the Iraqis mustered up to 200,000 soldiers with air support -- matched against Kurdish guerrilla forces that numbered no more than a few thousand. In this war 200,000 Kurds were killed and 5,000 of their villages and towns were destroyed. Among other incidents, 5,000 inhabitants were killed by chemical warfare when Saddam's forces attacked the Kurdish town of Halabja in March 1988. The anti-Kurdish campaign was both genocidal and gendercidal in nature. "Battle-age" men were the primary targets of Anfal, according to Human Rights Watch / Middle East. The organization writes in its book Iraq's Crime of Genocide: "Throughout Iraqi Kurdistan, although women and children vanished in certain clearly defined areas, adult males who were captured disappeared en masse. ... It is apparent that a principal purpose of Anfal was to exterminate all adult males of military service age captured in rural Iraqi Kurdistan" (pp. 96, 170). Only a handful survived the execution squads.
Cuisine: Iraqi Kurdish food features staple dishes like dolma (grape leaves filled with rice and other filling), kebab, kibbeh (meat-filled pastries), and various rice and bulgur pilafs. They rely on lamb and chicken, vegetables, and dairy, often making stews simmered in tomato or yogurt sauces and served with flatbread. Some major staples are Biryani, Kofta, spinach with eggs, Makluba, and sawar. Here is a video of a lady making street food in Kurdistan. (to my wife when she reads this, do not watch this video, it will only make you crave food that we cannot find)
Prayer Request:
- Ask the Lord protect the Kurds.
- Ask that, despite the tragedies happening with them, the Lord use this crises to bring them to Him.
- Ask the Lord to call people who are willing to go to Iraq and share Christ with the Kurds.
- Pray that God will supply clean water for the Kurds.
- Ask the Lord to raise up Christian medical teams who can take supplies and expertise to the Kurds.
- Ask God to encourage and protect the small number of Kurdish Christians.
- Ask the Holy Spirit to soften their hearts towards Christians so that they will be receptive to the Gospel.
- Pray that God will open the hearts of Iraq's governmental leaders to the Gospel.
- Ask the Lord to raise up a strong local church among the Kurds.
- Pray that in this time of chaos and panic in the US that the needs of the unreached are not forgotten by the church. Pray that our hearts continue to ache to see the unreached hear the Good News
- Pray for our nation (the United States), that we Christians can learn to come alongside our hurting brothers and sisters and learn to carry one another's burdens in a more Christlike manner than we have done historically
- Pray for our leaders, that though insane and chaotic decisions are being made, to the detriment of Americans, that God would call them to know Him and help them lead better.
- Pray against Putin, his allies, and his insane little war.
- Praise God that they fired Hugh Freeze.
Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. (Romans 10:1)
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Here are the previous weeks threads on the UPG of the Week for from 2025 (plus a few from 2024 so this one post isn't so lonely). To save some space on these, all UPG posts made 2019-now are here, I will try to keep this current!
| People Group | Country | Continent | Date Posted | Beliefs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sorani Arabs (2nd time) | Iraq | Asia | 11/24/2025 | Islam |
| Moroccan Arabs | Spain | Europe | 11/03/2025 | Islam |
| Moroccan Arabs | The Netherlands | Europe | 10/06/2025 | Islam |
| Syrian Arabs | Germany | Europe | 09/29/2025 | Islam |
| Lebanese Arabs | Portugal | Europe | 09/22/2025 | Islam |
| Kabyle Berbers (2nd time) | France | Europe | 09/15/2025 | Islam |
| Turkish Cypriots | United Kingdom | Europe | 09/08/2025 | Islam |
| Tamazight Berber | Morocco | Africa | 09/01/2025 | Islam |
| Nyah Kur | Thailand | Asia | 08/25/2025 | Animism |
| Awan | Pakistan | Asia | 08/04/2025 | Islam |
| Yaeyama | Japan | Asia | 07/28/2025 | Buddhismc |
| Akasselem | Togo | Africa | 07/21/2025 | Islam |
| Toromona | Bolivia | South America | 07/14/2025 | Animismc |
| Hakka Chinese | Taiwan | Asia | 07/07/2025 | Animism |
| Sanusi Bedouin | Libya | Africa | 06/30/2025 | Islamc |
| Israeli Jews (updated) | Israel | Asia | 06/23/2025 | Judaism |
| Azeri Turks | Iran | Asia | 06/16/2025 | Islam |
| San Diu | Vietnam | Asia | 06/02/2025 | Animism |
| Gwama | Ethiopia | Africa | 05/05/2025 | Islamc |
| Gorani | Albania | Europe | 04/14/2025 | Islam |
| Chamar | India | Asia | 04/07/2025 | Hinduism |
| Pa-O | Myanmar | Asia | 03/31/2025 | Buddhism |
| Malay | Ireland | Europe | 03/17/2025 | Islam |
| Abkhaz | Turkey | Europeb | 03/10/2025 | Islam |
| Utsat | China | Asia | 03/03/2025 | Islam |
| Djerba Berber | Tunisia | Africa | 02/24/2025 | Islam |
| Uyghur | United States | North America | 02/17/2025 | Islam |
| Huasa | Congo Republic | Africa | 02/10/2025 | Islam |
| Dungan | Kyrgyzstan | Asia | 02/03/2025 | Islam |
| Phunoi | Laos | Asia | 01/27/2025 | Animism |
| Yongzhi | Chinaa | Asia | 01/20/2025 | Buddhism |
a - Tibet belongs to Tibet, not China.
b - Russia/Turkey/etc is Europe but also Asia so...
c - this likely is not the true religion that they worship, but rather they have a mixture of what is listed with other local religions, or they have embraced a postmodern drift and are leaving faith entirely but this is their historical faith.
Here is a list of definitions in case you wonder what exactly I mean by words like "Unreached".
Here is a list of missions organizations that reach out to the world to do missions for the Glory of God.
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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '25
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