Archbishop: Christians who fled ISIS likely to return to villages next summer

November 18, 2016

The Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Erbil—the Kurdish city in Iraq to which tens of thousands of Christians fled in 2014 as ISIS advanced—believes that they will begin to return to their liberated villages next summer.

“If concrete signs [of safety and security] are given, people will definitely return,” Archbishop Bashar Warda told Aid to the Church in Need. “Hopefully, by next summer we will be seeing people on the ground [on the Nineveh Plain], working, cleaning and trying to get institutions going again.”

He added:

Finally, ISIS is being defeated; the Cross is victorious and finally this terrible evil is no longer there. People are attending Masses and saying prayers … Unfortunately there’s been a lot of destruction: there are burned out churches, while some of the shrines were completely destroyed and a lot of houses were damaged or destroyed, with furniture looted. We need time for reconstruction—to make these villages livable again.

 

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Further information:

• Iraq's displaced Christians 'will go back home,' but not before their safety is assured (Aid to the Church in Need)