On the last day of his historic trip to Iraq, Pope Francis arrived in Mosul this Sunday morning to pray for the “victims of the war” against the Islamic State (IS) group.
In what was still, from 2014 to 2017, the "capital of the caliphate", Christians number at most 70 families.
The 84-year-old pontiff flew by helicopter from nearby Erbil, and under very high protection, to the heart of the country's second city, to a church square decimated in 2017 during the fight to oust Daesh .
In total, fourteen churches in the province of Nineveh (north) of which Mosul is the capital, were destroyed, including seven dating back to the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries and it was therefore necessary to build a scene in the ruins of four churches from different obediences, including al-Tahira Church in Qaraqosh, near Mosul, a building more than 1,000 years old.
The country's Christian community is one of the oldest in the world, and one of the most exiled.
“The tragic decrease in the followers of Christ, here and throughout the Middle East, is an incalculable damage, not only to the individuals and communities concerned, but to the society itself which they are leaving behind”, a- he launched.
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When in 2014, ISIS captured the Nineveh Plain, tens of thousands of Christians fled.
They still continue to live in fear of the former paramilitaries who joined the police and who had given them little help in the face of Daesh.
The words said to the Pope on Saturday by Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a great figure of Shiism in Iraq and beyond, ensuring to work so that the Christians of Iraq live in “peace”, in “security” and with “all their constitutional rights “, Could reassure some.
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Pope Francis comes to Iraq to comfort one of the oldest Christian communities in the world
"Pope Francis arrives in his white coat to announce to the whole world that we are a people of peace, of civilization, of love," said Boutros Chito, a Catholic priest in Mosul who is putting the finishing touches on the decorations of the church. -Tahira.
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The 84-year-old Pope walked past the ruins to a square that was once the thriving center of the old city.
He greeted the residents, Christians and Muslims, who were waiting for him.
"We reaffirm our conviction that brotherhood is more lasting than fratricide, that hope is more powerful than hatred, that peace is more powerful than war," he told them.
“Together we say no to fundamentalism.
No to sectarianism and no to corruption, ”said the Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul, Najeeb Michaeel.
A mass in a stadium
Francis, visibly moved, was seated in a white chair surrounded by skeletons of buildings and suspended stairs.
Power struggles and corruption significantly slow down the reconstruction of the city.
"How cruel that this country, cradle of civilization, has been struck by such a barbaric blow, with ancient places of worship destroyed and thousands of people - Muslims, Christians, Yazidis and others - displaced or forcibly killed. », He testified.
After meetings with Christians from Qaraqosh, the Pope will celebrate a mass this afternoon in a stadium in Erbil in front of thousands of faithful, despite the confinement order valid until Monday evening in the country, because of the coronavirus.
There too, security will be strict: at the end of February, several rockets were fired at Erbil airport.
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