Posted on 11/18/2016 5:16:01 PM PST by marshmallow
We need time for reconstruction--to make these villages livable again
NEW YORK—According to a leading Iraqi prelate, the country’s displaced Christians currently stranded in Kurdistan are unlikely to be able to return to their homes on the Nineveh Plane until Mosul is liberated and the region is completely pacified.
In an interview with international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, Kurdistan, predicted that it won’t be until summer 2017 that the proper conditions will be achieved, including the reconstruction of damaged villages and security guarantees.
Meanwhile, an estimated 40,000 Christians will soon be confronted with harsh winter condition, relying on the local Church for food, housing and fuel.
ACN is foremost among 17 faith-based organizations—including the Knights of Columbus and Catholic Near East Welfare Association—that are enabling the Archdiocese of Erbil to meet the humanitarian and pastoral needs of the faithful under its care.
Archbishop Warda said: “Of course some people will stay in Duhok and Erbil because they have made their life here and started small businesses, but, if concrete signs [of safety and security] are given, people will definitely return. Hopefully, by next summer we will be seeing people on the ground [on the Nineveh Plane], working, cleaning and trying to get institutions going again.”
Along with his people, the archbishop is hopeful: “Finally, ISIS is being defeated; the Cross is victorious and finally this terrible evil is no longer there. People are attending Masses and saying prayers.”
People have begun “checking on their properties in these villages [on the Nineveh Plane],” he said, adding: “unfortunately there's been a lot of destruction: there are burned out churches, while some of the shrines were completely destroyed and a lot of houses were damaged or destroyed, with furniture looted.
(Excerpt) Read more at churchinneed.org ...
Wanting to go home to some mystical place on the “Nineveh Plane” seems odd, when they would be better off returning to the Nineveh Plain.
I dunno, just me...
Iraq: TIME TO GET OUTTA DODGE, folks. It won’t get any better. Move to....hmmmm. That’s a problem.
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