Christians want to go back to homes from which IS expelled them

The Iraqi Government’s announcement of a fresh military initiative aimed at freeing the city of Mosul and Nineveh province from the jihadists of Islamic State (IS), has received a guarded welcome from Christians, writes Ellen Teague.

 The Nineveh plain was home to predominantly Christian towns and villages that emptied between June and August last year before an IS onslaught. “Of course, many want to go back to their homes,” said Fr Paolo Thabit Mekko, a priest of Mosul currently displaced in Erbil. Despite many Christian refugees moving to Jordan and Lebanon or further afield, he says, “many dream of returning to their life as it was before”. There are reports this week that IS has retaliated with mass executions of Yazidi captives in the Nineveh plain.