125,000 thereabout, of which 65% of them are refugees who’ve come back to Iraq over the past decade. Diana is the capital: meaning “Christian” in Kurdish, as it was historically a small village of Chaldeans long before the refugees came. To this day the Chaldeans still inhabit an area of the the city, and continue to live in peace with their Muslim neighbors.
Those that fled Iraq to Iran decades ago during Saddam's regime later returned and settled in and around the district of Soran, as their home villages were unlivable piles of rubble still threatened by the PKK and bombs from the Turks.
As of late, the Yezidi people of Sinjar in Nineveh have been added to the montage of folks in the district. Following ISIS' Yezidi massacre in August 2014, they, too, found safe harbor in Soran. And though Soran is lacking in funds from the Iraqi government to support even themselves, they are doing anything and everything to accommodate the influx of people—knowing full well more are expected to arrive in the coming months and years. Unarguably, Soran's “hospitality” towards the newcomers can be attributed almost entirely to having been alienated once themselves.
Which makes me think, could it be that suffering can deepen us as people, perhaps soften us to empathize with others in such a way that can light the darkest valley—that what is meant for evil, meant to destroy, meant to kill can later become a thing for good?