In recent months, a sharp increase in propaganda indicates that ISIS has stepped up its campaign to eliminate gay communities from the territories it controls on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border. The punishment for such accusations can be public execution. According to a recent issue of ISIS propaganda magazine Dabiq, “sexual deviancy” is a crime punishable by death. The magazine goes on to describe the public execution of man in Raqqah — the group's main headquarters in Syria — who was thrown from the roof of a building after being found guilty of “engaging in sodomy.”

The current war in Syria has presented a new and grave threat to these transplant communities, influencing a number of gay refugees to flee once more into neighboring countries and forcing some to even return to Iraq.

Photographer Bradley Secker has met and photographed many of these refugees since 2010 and witnessed firsthand the tremendous human cost and sorrow of such persecution. His photo essay Iraq’s Unwanted: Gay Asylum offers an intimate look into the lives and stories of those forced from their home due to their sexual orientation.

*Names have been changed for security.