The Pope travelled to northern Iraq on the final day of his historic visit to minister to the country’s dwindling number of Christians, who were forced to leave their homes en masse when IS militants overtook vast swathes of northern Iraq in the summer of 2014. Islamic State overran Mosul in June 2014 and declared a caliphate stretching from territory in northern Syria deep into Iraq’s north and west. Mosul held deep symbolic importance for Islamic State and became the bureaucratic and financial backbone of the group. Pope Francis will travel by helicopter across the Nineveh plains to the small Christian community of Qaraqosh, where only a fraction of families have returned after fleeing the Islamic State onslaught in 2014. He will hear testimonies from residents and pray in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, which was torched by Islamic State and restored in recent years.

Source: The Irish Times March 07, 2021 06:55 UTC