Islamic State damaged 12,000 Christian homes in Iraq’s Nineveh region
March 29, 2017
The Islamic State damaged more than 12,000 Christian homes in the Nineveh Plain region, and completely destroyed nearly 700 of them, Aid to the Church in Need reports.
In a survey of Iraqis who fled from the Nineveh region during the Islamic State’s offensive in the summer of 2014, Aid to the Church in Need found that 40% planned to return to their homes now that they region has been liberated, and another 46% were considering that option. That result shows a jump in confidence; last November, when the fate of the Nineveh region was still uncertain, only 3% said that they planned to return.
However, most of those surveyed reported that the Islamic State had plundered their property, and 22% said that their homes were destroyed. Another 25% did not know whether or not their property was intact.
About 90,000 Christians from the Nineveh Plain are temporarily living in Erbil. (About 120,000 had originally sought shelter there in 2014.) Aid to the Church in Need estimates that the cost of rebuilding their homes will be over $200 million.
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