ASIA/IRAQ - Another 200 families of Christian displaced persons return to Mosul and the Nineveh Plain

Thursday, 12 November 2020 middle east oriental churches refugees displaced persons wars jihadists migrants

IRAQ

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Mosul (Agenzia Fides) - There are about two hundred families of Christian displaced people who in recent weeks and in the near future have already returned or are preparing to return to their areas of origin, in the neighborhoods of Mosul and in the cities and villages of the Nineveh Plain. The news concerning the ongoing return of a new large group of displaced belonging to the local Christian communities arrived on Wednesday 11 November from Zuhair Muhsin al Araji, and was confirmed by Najim al Jubouri, Governor of the Province of Nineveh. In detail, about ninety Christian families are returning to Mosul and are regaining possession of their homes in the Old City and on the eastern side of the city, after the restoration of adequate security conditions and sufficient urban services.
Christian families fled between June and August 2014, when Mosul and much of the province of Nineveh fell under the control of the jihadist militias of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (Daesh). The displaced Christians of Mosul and the Nineveh Plain had found refuge largely in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan and in particular in the suburbs of Erbil, its capital.
In September 2017, a few weeks after the definitive liberation of Mosul, the local authorities had already announced the return of 1,400 Christian refugee families to their areas of origin, concentrated in the Nineveh Plain. Now the announced further return of dozens of Christian families to Mosul and to the villages of the Nineveh Plain represents a comforting sign, even if in terms of percentage the numerical data relating to the counter-exodus of Christian refugees in the northern Iraqi areas of their roots historical remain weak. Most of the families forced to flee during the years of jihadist rule do not seem inclined to return to the homes they abandoned after finding a new accommodation in Erbil or in the Dohuk region, or after having managed to emigrate abroad. (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 12/11/2020)