IRAQI CHRISTIANS CELEBRATE FIRST CHRISTMAS SINCE THE RECAPTURE OF THEIR TOWN

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A few hundred Iraqi Christians flocked on Saturday (December 24) to Bartella, a northern town recently retaken from Islamic State, to celebrate Christmas for the first time since 2013.

Bartella, once home to thousands of Assyrian Christians, emptied in August 2014 when it fell to Islamic State’s blitz across large parts of Iraq and neighbouring Syria. Iraqi forces took it back in the first few days of the U.S.-backed offensive that started in October.

“Today we are experiencing a mixture of sadness and happiness. We are feeling both at the same time, We are not too happy and not too sad. We had hoped that life would be back to normal, but Daesh (Islamic State) in occupying these areas, destroyed many holy places that brought together the children of this nation. They targeted the centre of Christian life in this area,” said Bishop Mussa Shemali before a Christmas Eve ceremony at Mar Shimoni church, which has been badly damaged, with crosses taken down and statues of saints defaced.

The region of Nineveh is one of the most ancient settlements of Christianity, going back nearly 2,000 years.

Islamic State targeted all non-Sunni Muslim groups living under its rule, also inflicting harsh punishment on Sunnis who wouldn’t abide by its extreme interpretation of Islam.

The region’s Christians were given an ultimatum: pay a tax, convert to Islam, or die by the sword. Most of them fled to the autonomous Kurdish region, across the Zab river, to the east.

It will be some time before people can return to the town which remains without basic services, and many buildings still bear the scars of the fighting.

“Today, I am the happiest person in the world; this is the best day of my life. I am so happy to be back in my area and to my church. No matter what those rats, Daesh, do they will never keep us from our homes. No matter what they do, we will remain,” said Shrook Tawfiq, a 52-year-old housewife displaced to the nearby Kurdish city of Erbil.

The front line in the battle to retake Mosul – Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq, has moved a few kilometres to the west, into eastern districts where the militants are dug in among civilians, fighting off the advance of elite Iraqi units with suicide car bombs, mortars and snipers.

Head of the Counter-Terrorism Unit Lieutenant-General Abdelghani Al-Assadi said this mass was held in defiance of the Islamic State militants.

“We say to the terrorists, if they are watching on their lying media channels, to look at the real picture. Our brothers and family, the Christians in Bartella, are standing up to them. They held mass here with this large number of people, with minimal protection, as you see there is little security,” he said.

More than one million people are estimated to live in areas of the city that remain under militant control, complicating the war plans of the Iraqi army and the U.S.-led coalition providing air and ground support.

(Reuters)

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