On a warm evening at Irbil International Airport in Iraqi Kurdistan, some 150 mostly Christian refugees anxiously waited to flee their homeland aboard a French government plane.
The refugees, of all ages and from 25 different families, had one message as they prepared to fly to Paris to escape the threat of Islamic State militants: Christians and Muslims can no longer live together in Iraq.
Shakeep, a 46-year-old lawyer who worked at Mosul's main law court, was taking his wife, mother, daughter and nephew to Tours in western France, where his uncle lives. One bag each was all they had left of their belongings.