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It’s been two decades since the U.S. invaded Iraq over alleged weapons of mass destruction. Reset hears how the war affected two Chicagoans.   By Lynnea Domienik Mar 20, 2023, 2:32pm CT The war killed 275,000 Iraqi civilians and 4,500 U.S. military personnel and injured tens of thousands of U.S. troops. No “WMD” were found. Today …

Ekram Hanna wrote those dates in the fall, when she learned she would have funding for a daylong mental health training she hoped to coordinate. “When you put something in your mind, you just do it,” she said. Hanna is an Iraqi immigrant who is certified as a mental health first aid instructor. She trains …

Chicagoans is a first-person account from off the beaten track, as told to Anne Ford. This week’s Chicagoan is Othman Al Ani, a former refugee. “I came from Baghdad three years ago. I applied at the end of 2008 to come to United States as a refugee, and after that, I had to wait for four years …

When refugees make the long and often difficult journey from their homeland, they don’t have room for a lot of personal objects. Photographer Jim Lommasson has documented the few items that Iraqi refugees carried with them to Chicago. The pictures are part of an exhibit called What We Carried: Fragments from the Cradle of Civilization. …

Even under the best of circumstances, it’s challenging for immigrants to adjust to a new life in a new country. And when immigrants have fled countries roiled by violence and war, the upheaval and stress in their lives is even more profound. Among refugees, about 10 to 40 percent may experience post-traumatic stress disorder and …

CHICAGO (Tribune News Service) Grocery shopping. Furnishing apartments. Finding translators. These are just some of the ways Chicago resettlement agencies are working to welcome an expected influx of Afghan refugees who fled their homes before the last U.S. plane left the country. Refugee resettlement groups expect as many as 500 Afghan refugees to arrive in …