Sylvain Mercadier

Freelance journalist.

[Reporting Turkish Incursion Wreaks Havoc in Iraqi Kurdistan Sylvain Mercadier · December 2020 Locked in a bloody struggle for decades now, Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are now confronting one another in the Kurdish mountains of Iraq. Little by little, the area is being depopulated. And the struggle has aggravated tensions between the various Kurdish factions, raising (...)
Can Iraq Reform Itself Amid Chaos? Mohamed Shiaa, Sylvain Mercadier · September 2020 For more than three months, Mustafa Al-Kadhimi’s transitional government has ruled Iraq. As the ongoing sanitary crisis is only getting worse, budget deficit is widening due to low oil prices while Iraqi’s living conditions are going from bad to worse. As tensions between Iran and the United (...)
Greece, the Humanitarian Dead-End Amelia Cooper, Sylvain Mercadier · March 2020 The spread of the coranovirus crisis has diverted attention from another human tragedy, that caused by the European management of the “refugee crisis” that began in 2015. After the announcement that Turkey would open its borders to refugees wishing to come to Europe and the Greek reaction of (...)
The Militias in Iraq, From Popular Mobilization to Political Interference Araz Muhamad Arash, Sylvain Mercadier · February 2018 The Popular Mobilization Units or Hashd al-Shaabi, formed in 2014 following a fatwa by grand ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, played a major role in countering the expansion of the Islamic State in Iraq. As the Islamic State was officially defeated last December, the future of the PMU is subject to (...)