Posted on 07/07/2019 6:07:57 PM PDT by marshmallow
ROME — One year ago, Inés San Martín of Crux and I took a reporting trip to the Nineveh Plains of northern Iraq, where local Christians are struggling to rebuild their homes in the wake of destruction caused by a brutal ISIS occupation.
A couple of months later, Elise Harris of Crux also visited northern Iraq, getting to some of the places San Martín and I weren’t able to go, including the city of Mosul, where, at the time, there was hope of a Christian return from exile, too.
What all of us came away with was a deep sense of hope. We were astounded by the resilience and the determination of the Christians we met, stirred by the sense that perhaps Christianity has a future in the region after all.
One year later we find ourselves wondering if we were naïve, watching conditions deteriorate and Christians once again in peril.
Recently Archbishop Najib Mikhael Moussa of Mosul, appointed by Pope Francis in 2018, conceded that very few Christians are actually returning to the battered city.
Moussa told EuroNews that only about 30 Christian families, just 10 percent of the pre-ISIS Christian population of the city, have come back, due both to security fears and to the lack of economic opportunities.
Recently, a contact in Iraq who facilitated our travel a year ago said Harris was lucky to have seen Mosul when she did, because he definitely wouldn’t recommend such a trip today.
“The power of the militias is growing all the time,” he said, referring to Kurdish and Iranian-backed armed groups who often serve as the de facto governments in some parts of northern Iraq.
(Excerpt) Read more at angelusnews.com ...
If Barry would have let them come here it wouldn’t need to be asked.
It took 96 hours to get Saddam out of Kuwait. Do the math. Why the—k did we go there? Shouda just bombed the place and threaten to come back and do it again. Every bridge, cellular site, and port in the entire middle east.
Pope Francis standing by doing nothing ...
Christians were better off under Saddam Hussein as were the Jewish.
We bring Sand Savages in by the thousands - guess that doesn’t leave much room for these poor souls.
May the Lord bless them.
How Long Can Christians Last Anywhere?
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