ASIA/IRAQ - Ministry for Migration: more than 250,000 refugees have already returned to towns and villages in the province of Nineveh

Monday, 31 July 2017 middle east   refugees   oriental churches   jihadists  

ankawa.com

Mosul (Agenzia Fides) - The Iraqi Ministry for Migration and Internal Mobility reported that more than 250,000 people have returned to their respective areas of origin in the Nineveh Province, who had to leave when those regions had been occupied or threatened by jihadist militias of the Islamic State (Daesh). The numerical data was provided during a radio interview by Sattar Nowruz, spokesperson of the Iraqi ministry for migration and internal flows. The same ministry, in early June, confirmed that the civilians displaced from the Nineveh province since 2016 were almost 820 thousand, and that the latest in the number of internally displaced persons coincided with the intensification of military operations for the liberation of Mosul.
Among the displaced people who are expected to return to the province of Nineveh there are also tens of thousands of Christians who left in July and August 2014 and found refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan. Local information bodies continue to document a weak flow of Christian families back to their homes. In a widespread interview on Friday, July 28, Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako recalled that the liberation of Mosul has not cancelled all the risk and instability factors in the region, adding that many houses were devastated during the jihadist occupation and the phases of conflict, and that all this also makes the future return of many Christian families to the land of their historical rooting uncertain. (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 31/7/2017)


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