SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iraqi President Barham Salih on Wednesday called for the return of displaced Christians to their areas.
“Christians are an authentic component of the country, and they have great contributions in various aspects of life,” Salih said during the meeting during a meeting with bishops of Ancient Church of the East at the presidential Palace in Baghdad, according to the Iraqi presidency.
He also stressed the need for displaced Christians to return to their areas and to ensure their participation in political, social and cultural life.
Iraq’s Christians have endured unrest over centuries, but a mass exodus began after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and accelerated during the reign of Islamic State (ISIS), which brutalized minorities and Muslims alike.
Hundreds of thousands left for nearby areas and Western countries.
Across Iraq’s northern Nineveh Plains, home to some of the oldest churches and monasteries in the world, the remaining Christians often live displaced in villages that fell easily to ISIS in 2014 or in enclaves of bigger cities such as Mosul and the Kurdistan Region.
The Islamists’ rule over almost a third of Iraq, with Mosul as their capital, ended in 2017 in a destructive battle with security forces.
Physical and economic ruin remains. Iraqi authorities have struggled to rebuild areas decimated by war, and armed groups that the government has not been able to control vie for territory and resources, including Christian heartlands.
Iraq’s indigenous Christians are estimated to number around 300,000, a fifth of the 1.5 million who lived in the country before the 2003 invasion that toppled Sunni Muslim leader Saddam Hussein.
