70,000 displaced Christians return to post-Daesh Mosul

By Ali Jawad

BAGHDAD

Some 70,000 displaced Christians have returned to Iraq’s northern Nineveh province since Mosul, Nineveh’s regional capital, was liberated from the Daesh terrorist group last year, according to an Iraqi Christian official.

“About 120,000 Christians fled the region during the three years that Daesh controlled Nineveh,” Yonadam Kanna, head of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, an Iraqi Christian association, told Anadolu Agency on Friday.

“Since the liberation of Mosul [by the Iraqi army] last year, only about 70,000 of them have returned to their homes, due mainly to the lack of functioning infrastructure,” he added.

Late last year, officials in Baghdad declared that Daesh’s military presence in Iraq had been all but destroyed following a three-year conflict with the Iraqi army and a U.S.-led military coalition.