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Added on the 04/03/2021 21:01:29 - Copyright : France 24 EN
Pope Francis meets Christians in an ancient Iraqi church torched by the Islamic State group when it swept into the northern town of Qaraqosh in 2014. After the jihadists were ousted in 2016, the Al-Tahera (Immaculate Conception) Church's marble floors and columns were restored and the faithful gathered there on Sunday to welcome the pontiff. IMAGES
Thousands of invaluable ancient manuscripts were under threat from the so-called Islamic State Iraq's largest Christian city, Qaraqosh, after the city came under attack from the terrorist militant group in August 2014. Luckily, one daring Dominican priest managed to save countless historical documents. Father Najeeb Michael fled with the manuscripts alongside thousands of other Christians. However, after taking the books to relative safety in the nearby city of Mosul, Father Michaeel was forced to flee once more, this time to Erbil, just days before the arrival of IS fighters to Mosul.
This little toddler named Bilal Tagirov was just two years old when his father kidnapped him and forced him to travel to Syria in October 2015. Bilal's father Hassan Tagirov left the Chechen Republic in order to fight for the self-proclaimed Islamic State. His mother Zalikha Ashakhanova only found out that her son was located in Mosul by chance when she saw a video of him online on July 15, 2017. The toddler was found by Chechen security forces in Mosul and finally reunited with Zalikha in Grozny on Thursday, returning to her waiting arms.
Women living in Haji Ali, a group of villages numbering about 40,000 people in northern Iraq about 40 miles south of Mosul, have taken up arms to protect the area from Islamic State militants. IS-controlled villages are only about a mile away, so women have learned how to use weapons and have started guarding their families' houses at night, in order to help their men, which rotate in and out of the frontline. Villagers fear that IS could sneak across the Tigris river and into the village under the cover of night, and are complaining that locals don't have enough weapons to defend themselves.
Music and cheers ring through Manger Square in Bethlehem, as the Pope's envoy to the Middle East arrives to mark the start of the festive season of Advent. Mana Rabiee reports.
The Group of Seven industrialised nations is "committed to de-escalating" tensions in the Middle East in the wake of reports that Israel launched strikes on Iran in retaliation for its unprecedented attack on Israeli soil Saturday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says. "We're committed to Israel's security. We're also committed to de-escalating, to trying to bring this tension to a close," Blinken tells a press conference after a meeting of G7 foreign ministers on the Italian island of Capri. SOUNDBITE
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