Pope Francis arrives in Mosul amid threats to meet Christian communities

Pope Francis will travel by helicopter to lead a prayer "for the victims of the war" in the city of Mosul

By AFP
March 07, 2021
Pope Francis, accompanied by Masour Barzani (R) Prime Minister of the 9th cabinet of the Kurdistan Regional Government, greets Iraqi youngsters dressed in traditional costumes upon his arrival at Arbil airport on March 7, 2021, in the capital of the northern Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region. Pope Francis, on his historic Iraq tour, visits today Christian communities that endured the brutality of the Islamic State group until the jihadists´ "caliphate" was defeated three years ago. / AFP / Safin HAMED

Pope Francis arrived in Iraq's Mosul city on Sunday to meet Christian communities who had braved atrocities under the rule of Daesh.

The Pope arrived in Mosul to cap his historic tour of the country, with heavy security to prevent any untoward incident from happening.

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Francis landed early on Sunday at the airport in the Kurdish regional capital of Arbil, targeted just a few weeks ago by a volley of rockets that killed two people.

He held a brief meeting with regional president Nechirvan Barzani and his cousin, the prime minister Masrour Barzani.

The pontiff will then travel by helicopter to lead a prayer "for the victims of the war" in the city of Mosul, an ancient crossroads overrun by Daesh in 2014.

"We believers cannot be silent when terrorism abuses religion," Francis said at an interfaith service Saturday, one of the many stops on the first-ever papal visit to the war-scarred country.

Pope Francis' trip to Iraq as a "pilgrim of peace" aims to reassure the country´s ancient, but dwindling, Christian community and to expand his dialogue with other religions.

The leader of the world´s 1.3 billion Catholics on Saturday met Iraq's top scholar, the reclusive Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who agreed that Iraq's Christians should be able to live in "peace".

"We all hope that this visit will be a good omen for the Iraqi people," Adnane Youssef, a Christian from northern Iraq, told AFP. "We hope that it will lead to better days."

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