As anti-Islamic State
(IS) forces continue their operations to recapture Iraq’s second city of Mosul,
Christians from towns around it have welcomed the retaking of their two years’
deserted homes. According to sources monitoring the situation on the ground,
Bartella, a town with a significant Christian presence prior to the IS
invasion, was back in Iraqi government hands on Thursday (20 Oct.). The town,
located 21km east of Mosul, has yet to be cleared of mines and other
explosives, World Watch Monitor
reported. According to Almasdar News,
Bartella had a pre-IS population of 30,000. It had a Christian Assyrian
majority before mass migration by Kurds and others made Assyrians a minority in
2003. Meanwhile, the battle continues for Qaraqosh (32km southeast of Mosul), a
town that was once home to Iraq's largest Christian community, considered one
of the oldest in the world. On Tuesday, displaced Christians in nearby Erbil
held a vigil, cheering and dancing, but their jubilation may be premature.
Several towns from which Christians were displaced since the summer of 2014 are
yet to be freed, while an influx of new refugees from areas currently being
clawed back from IS could further irreversibly change the demography of an area
once seen as the last stronghold of ancient Christianity around Iraq’s
north-eastern Nineveh Plain. Mosul is the capital of Nineveh province, formerly
home to the largest concentration of Christians and other ethno-religious
minorities left in Iraq.
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