Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.



North Dakota



The Jamestown Sun of Jamestown, North Dakota, reported recently that the Midwestern state is expecting about 400 new refugees to arrive from the Middle East this year.



Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota and its “community partners,” which include schools, medical facilities, law enforcement, county and volunteer agencies and churches, are anticipating a shift in the ongoing resettling of refugees there.



The state is expecting a slowing of the influx of Hindus from Bhutan and an increase in the number of Muslims coming from the Middle East, reported Ann Corcoran in her Refugee Resettlement Watch blog.



The Lutheran agency has recently resettled a number of people from Afghanistan, and is planning for refugees in the coming months from Syria and Iraq, who are escaping the brutality of the Islamic State, also called ISIS, and civil war in Syria, the Sun reported.



Laetitia Mizero, program director and state refugee coordinator at Lutheran Social Services, said 260 refugees will settle in the Fargo area, about 95 in Grand Forks and 45 in Bismarck.



Once a city gets a refugee “seed community” started, it tends to grow, Corcoran said. That’s because the resettlement agency, the Lutherans in this case, then gets paid by the government to resettle the family members of the initial refugees.



Louisville, Kentucky



The Louisville Courier-Journal reports that Kentucky Refugee Ministries Executive Director John Koehlinger said an Iraqi-American in that city has started an Arabic newspaper to serve the “large number of refugees from Iraq” in Louisville. That’s a trend that started around 2008 — and now Louisville is preparing to aid the first wave of refugees from Syria in 2015, the Courier-Journal reported.



“Refugees have been coming from Iraq in large numbers for five years,” Koehlinger told the Courier-Journal. “I think that the time is right for a newspaper for that (Arab) community.”



Spokane, Washington



Spokane, Washington, has already welcomed one family of Iraqis that had fled to Syria under pressure from ISIS.



In addition to the Iraqi family arriving from Syria, World Relief Spokane told KXLY-TV that a Syrian family will be coming in the next couple months “with many more to follow.”



North Carolina, Texas and Ohio



As previously reported by WND, the cities of Greensboro, North Carolina, and Cleveland, Ohio, are also primed to receive Syrian refugees.



If established patterns hold, Texas could also be a hotspot for Syrian refugees. It has already received 50 Syrians over the last year-and-a-half, according to State Department figures.



Lincoln, Nebraska



Nebraska is also primed to receive Syrian refugees. At least four Nebraska resettlement agencies have said they are preparing to help the effort, reported the McCook Gazette of McCook, Nebraska, although no numbers have been released yet for Nebraska.



Nebraska agencies pledging to help deal with the refugees include Lutheran Refugee Services of Lincoln, Lutheran Family Services, Catholic Social Services and the Southern Sudan Community Association.



More than 3 million Syrians have fled their country because of the ongoing civil war between forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and several Islamic rebel groups including ISIS, the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army. Assad is a member of the minority Alawite sect which is fighting the coalition of Sunni Muslim rebels. Christians have been largely protected by the Alawite regime, worshiping freely in centuries-old Syrian churches, many of which now lie in ruins.



Greek Catholic sources have said more than 300,000 Syrian Christians are among the refugees driven from their homes. But neither the United Nations nor the Obama administration has shown a willingness to bring large numbers of Christian Syrians to the United States, focusing instead on Muslim refugees which pose a greater security risk.



Peter Jesserer Smith, Washington correspondent for the National Catholic Register, recently filed a story from a refugee camp in Lebanon in which a Catholic nun, who runs a relief effort serving Christians and Muslims from Syria, told Smith that she is well aware that ISIS has its “infiltrators within the Sunni refugees.”



“If they kill me, it’s not a problem,” the nun said. “Maybe another sister … will have the courage to continue the mission.”



The Canadian government said in December that it was considering giving priority to Christian and Yazidi refugees fleeing Syria and has since come under strong condemnation from the U.N. and non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International. Canada’s left-leaning Liberal Party also roundly criticized the plans by conservatives to focus on non-Muslim refugees.













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