By Inquirer
Members of Iraq’s Christian minority celebrated Palm Sunday in the
country’s main Christian town of Qaraqosh for the first time since it
was retaken from the Islamic State or ISIS group.
Hundreds of faithful gathered inside the town’s burnt out Immaculate Conception church for mass before starting the traditional Palm Sunday march, a procession during which palms are carried to commemorate Jesus’s entry to Jerusalem.
“Thank God, we are returning to our towns and churches after two
years,” Abu Naimat Anay, an Iraqi priest, said inside the church, which
is Iraq’s biggest and where jihadist inscriptions were still visible on
the walls.
Qaraqosh, with an overwhelmingly Christian population of around
50,000 before the jihadists took over the area in August 2014, was the
largest Christian town in Iraq.
It was retaken by Iraqi forces late last year as part of a massive
offensive to wrest back the nearby city of Mosul from ISIS but it
remains almost completely deserted.
By Inquirer
