 The U.S. State Department's designation of atrocities committed against religious minorities of Iraq and others is an important step forward for the international community. This brings to attention the issues that have been around and perpetrated against them for decades. This is what we see today committed against the minorities is a long-standing mindset and ideology that has been around in the system of Saddam Hussein and Bashar al-Assad in Syria and in ISIS today. Many minorities moving forward will need continued humanitarian assistance because the magnitude of the problem is huge and what has been provided is still below the need and there is a likelihood of a protracted displacement so the humanitarian relief will be important in that sense but the protracted displacement could also give us issues of tension with the host communities. After liberation the return of people will not be easy for a number of factors. One of them is related to just the massive destruction that those areas have witnessed. Second because of the improvised explosive devices that have been planted and third because of the security concerns that those internally displaced people will have including the religious minorities. Risks coming from the potential for revenge violence, coming from communities who have sided with the different actors in this conflict and there will be competition for scarce resources and there will be issues of property and other kinds of infrastructure problems that will cause tensions among those communities so stabilization and reconciliation work will be necessary to address those and make the return of those displaced people a long-term and sustainable solution.