No water, no jobs: ISIL survivors struggle in northern Iraq

Battered by violence, Christians face a confluence of environmental and economic hardship in the Nineveh Plains.

When Father Ammar Yako, a Syriac Catholic priest in the majority-Assyrian Christian town of Qaraqosh in northern Iraq, returned to his church in 2016 he found its floors covered in rubble and its artwork pillaged. After two years of control by the armed group ISIL (ISIS), Qaraqosh, including the Great Immaculate Church where Yako preaches, had been subjected to looting and urban warfare before it was recaptured by Iraqi security forces and allied militias. Five years later with his church rebuilt, Yako’s congregation received a visit from none other than Pope Francis. But two months on from the pontiff’s historic trip, Yako foresees a grim future for his community as it battles a tense security situation and a host of more immediate concerns.