Pope arrives in Erbil and is expected to visit Mosul, a visit to the small Christian community of Qaraqosh.
Pope Francis has arrived in northern Iraq, where he plans to pray in the ruins of churches ravaged or destroyed by militants from the ISIL armed group (ISIS) and celebrate an outdoor mass on the last day of his tour of the country.
The 84-year-old pontiff is currently on his first-ever papal expedition to Iraq, where the Christian community has declined after years of war and persecution.
Francis arrived at Erbil airport on Sunday morning where he would meet with leaders of the Kurdish independent region of Iraq.
He will then go to the northern city of Mosul, which was severely damaged in the war against ISIL, to pray for the victims of the Iraq war.
The setting will be a town square surrounded by the remains of four ruined churches belonging to some of the many Christian names in Iraq.
He is then expected to travel by helicopter across the Nineveh Plains to the small Christian community of Qaraqosh, where few families have returned after fleeing the 2014 ISIL attack.
The pope will then return to Erbil stadium where he will hold a mass expected to attract up to 10,000 people.
He landed in Baghdad on Friday for the four-day voyage, defying the panacea and global security concerns following a series of recent attacks in Iraq.
During his visit, the pope has already visited churches in Baghdad, met with Shia Ali al-Sistani chief cleric and held an interfaith meeting in the old city of Ur in southern Iraq today.
The Vatican hopes the famous trip will gather the country’s Christian communities and encourage them to live despite decades of war and instability.
Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq – infographicIraq declared victory over ISIL in 2017 and, although the armed group does not control any territory, they still carry out attacks from time to time, especially in the head North.
The group’s three-year brutal rule of much of northern and western Iraq, and the gruesome campaign against it, have left a vast array of devastation.
Many Iraqis have had to rebuild their homes at their own expense. Iraq’s Christian minority has been hit particularly hard. The armed fighting forced them to choose between conversion, death or the payment of a special tax for non-Muslims.
There were once more than a million Christians in Iraq, but now their population is estimated to be between 250,000 and 400,000 after years of war, religious persecution and steep economic decline.