ASIA/IRAQ - Military offensive to free the province of Nineveh. Chaldean priest: "Christians want to return to their homes"

Saturday, 2 May 2015

Erbil (Agenzia Fides) - The Iraqi Interior Ministry has announced the creation of a joint task force coordination to start military operations aimed at freeing Mosul and Nineveh province, currently in the hands of the jihadist of the Islamic State.
The body will involve the military apparatus of Baghdad and those that refer to the government of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan. The creation of the body was sanctioned during a summit meeting in Erbil which was attended by the defense ministers of the Interior and those of the two governments. The Iraqi media also reported that the US ambassador in Iraq, Stuart E. Jones took part in the meeting.
In statements reported by the national press, Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi ensured that Iraq will commit its army in the liberation of the province of Nineveh, as it did for the region of Tikrit, and has also asked the people of Nineveh to take part in the military operations against the militias of the Islamic State in order to be able to allow civilians to return to their homes.
In the Nineveh plains there are predominantly Christian towns and villages where tens of thousands of inhabitants fled between June and August last year before the offensive of the Islamic State. "We heard about the meeting among the Ministers" refers to Agenzia Fides Paolo Thabit Mekko, a priest of Mosul currently displaced in Erbil "and we were also told that the preparation of the operations will be led by a Kurdish soldier of the Iraqi army. But it is not possible to say if and when the campaign to liberate Mosul and the Nineveh Plain will begin. We have to see if and how it will take account of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month that begins after mid-June. Of course, many want to go back to their homes. Among the Christian refugees there are those who in the meantime have moved to Jordan or Lebanon. Only a few went to France, and some have also returned. It is not true that everyone wants to flee. Many dream of returning to their life as it was before".
Meanwhile several sources - including the governor of Nineveh province Athil al Nujafi - report news of a new mass execution of Yazidi prisoners by jihadist of the Islamic State (Is) perpetrated in the district of Talafar. The jihadists have massacred hundreds of men belonging to the Yazidi community of Sinjar, after separating them from women and children. The bodies were then piled in mass graves. (GV) (Agenzia Fides 02/05/2015)


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