Christians and Yezidis are slowly returning to their homes now that an alliance of Kurds and Iraqi Arabs has driven the jihadists of Islamic State out of Mosul. But their relief may be short-lived, as their liberators seem locked on a collision course / By Filipe D’Avillez

When Mosul fell to Islamic State (IS) in 2014 several hundred thousand Christians fled the Iraqi city, first to towns and villages in their ancestral homeland of the Nineveh Plain and, later, as IS encroached, to the relative safety of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Some had it even worse. Yezidi boys and men were rounded up and shot, and women taken off as sex slaves. The survivors hid on their holy but barren Mount Sinjar, burying their children when they died of thirst.