Pope urges Iraqi Christians not to lose hope

Pope Francis called on Iraq’s Christians to forgive the injustices committed against them by Muslim extremists and not to stop dreaming as he visited the wrecked shells of churches and met ecstatic crowds in the community’s historic heartland, which was nearly erased by the Islamic State group’s horrific reign.

Qaraqosh: Pope Francis urged the Christians of Iraq not to stop dreaming and not to give up hope at a packed church in Qaraqosh on his third day of his trip.

Pope Francis arrived in northern Iraq on Sunday, where he prayed in the ruins of churches damaged or destroyed by Islamic State extremists and scheduled to celebrate an open-air Mass on the last day of the first-ever papal visit to the country.

The Vatican hopes that the landmark visit will rally the country's Christian communities and encourage them to stay despite decades of war and instability.

Read:Pope meets with Iraqi Kurdistan leaders at airport

Francis has also delivered a message of interreligious tolerance and fraternity to Muslim leaders.

Francis headed to the northern city of Mosul, which was heavily damaged in the war against IS, to pray for Iraq's war victims.

In a scene unimaginable just four years ago, he mounted a stage in a city square surrounded by the remnants of four damaged churches belonging to some of Iraq's myriad Christian rites and denominations.

A jubilant crowd welcomed him.

IS overran Mosul in June 2014 and declared a caliphate stretching from territory in northern Syria deep into Iraq's north and west.

It was from Mosul's al-Nuri mosque that the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, made his only public appearance when he gave a Friday sermon calling on all Muslims to follow him as "caliph."

Mosul held deep symbolic importance for IS and became the bureaucratic and financial backbone of the group.

Read:Pope, top Iraq Shiite cleric hold historic, symbolic meeting

It was finally liberated in July 2017 after a ferocious nine-month battle.

Between 9,000 and 11,000 civilians were killed, according to an Associated Press investigation at the time.

Al-Baghdadi was killed in a US raid in Syria in 2019.

Iraq declared victory over IS in 2017, and while the extremist group no longer controls any territory it still carries out sporadic attacks, especially in the north.

The country has also seen a series of recent rocket attacks by Iran-backed militias against US targets, violence linked to tensions between Washington and Tehran.

The IS group's brutal three-year rule of much of northern and western Iraq, and the gruelling campaign against it, left a vast swathe of destruction.

Reconstruction efforts have stalled amid a years-long financial crisis, and entire neighbourhoods remain in ruins.

Many Iraqis have had to rebuild their homes at their own expense.

Iraq's Christian minority was hit especially hard.

The militants forced them to choose among conversion, death or the payment of a special tax for non-Muslims.

Thousands fled, leaving behind homes and churches that were destroyed or commandeered by the extremists.

Read:Pope Francis meets with top Shiite cleric in Iraq

Iraq's Christian population, which traces its history back to the earliest days of the faith, had already rapidly dwindled, from around 1.5 million before the 2003 US-led invasion that plunged the country into chaos to just a few hundred thousand today.

Francis hopes to deliver a message of hope, one underscored by the historic nature of the visit and the fact that it is his first international trip since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

AP