Thousands of Christians fleeing persecution in other parts of Iraq have returned since 2004 to ancestral lands in the Nineveh Plain, just north and east of Mosul.
While they have escaped the Islamic militias who slaughtered family members and burned down their houses and churches in Baghdad and Mosul, now they face a new battle. Today's enemies are poverty, joblessness, and despair.
Jamal Dinha, mayor of Bartella, a large Christian village east of Mosul, painted a dire picture of the life these persecuted Christians now face in this Kurdish-controlled safe haven.
"The situation in our region is critical. Our young people are unemployed. We have IDPs [internally-displaced people] from everywhere. Our infrastructure is bad. Our cultural and scientific institutions don't exist. We have no electricity, bad water, broken streets."
The despair is driving many families to emigrate a second time to Syria and Jordan. More...
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