ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraqi Christian leaders on Sunday called on French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss the displacement and future of the community with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi government during a visit to a church destroyed during Islamic State (ISIS) rule.
During Macron’s visit to Mosul’s Our Lady of the Hour Church, where he met with Christian figures, Nicodemus Daoud Matti Sharaf said that Christians have become a minority in Iraq and called for their future in the country to be secured.
“We have accepted being a minority but it is hard to be refugees in our country. Praise be to God, God found us a place that welcomed us with open arms, which is Kurdistan,” said the Syrian Orthodox Metropolitan of Mosul, Kirkuk and the Kurdistan Region.
“We hope you work with the central government in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region for the settlement of Christians and these roots. The Christians of Iraq are the roots of Christianity in the world. If they are cut then Christianity will be in danger,” Sharaf added.
ISIS first swept through Iraq in 2014, capturing cities across northern and central Iraq, including Mosul. Attacks by the group hit minority communities especially hard, including Christians, many of them survived by seeking refuge in the Kurdistan Region.
Decades of violence have almost completely emptied Iraq of its ancient Christian community. Following the US-led invasion of 2003, sectarian warfare prompted followers of Iraq’s multiple Christian denominations to flee, as well as the occupation of ISIS. According to data from Erbil’s Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda, there were more than one million Christians in Iraq before 2003. Fewer than 300,000 remain today.
Macron travelled to Mosul from Erbil, where he landed early on Sunday morning after visiting Baghdad for a regional summit organized with help from Paris.
He also visited the city’s al-Nuri mosque, where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the establishment of the caliphate in 2014. The mosque and its minaret were both destroyed during the battle of Mosul, but are now being rebuilt by UNESCO.
Speaking from al-Nuri, Macron said France will “rebuild monuments, churches, schools, mosques, minarets, and so on, but we will also help build economic opportunities.”
More than 40 historically valuable buildings were either destroyed or completely torn down during ISIS rule and the war that followed in Mosul.
