Iraq offers housing plots to returnee Christians
Shafaq News- Baghdad
Iraq is offering new incentives to encourage the return of Christian families who left the country during years of turmoil, including access to the nationwide “One-Million Residential Land Plot” initiative, Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi disclosed on Saturday.
During a meeting in Baghdad with Chaldean Catholic Church head Patriarch Mar Paulus III Nona and a delegation that included Chaldean Archbishop of Erbil Bashar Matti Warda and several Christian clergy, Al-Zaidi stressed that Christians remain an important part of Iraqi society and have played a longstanding role in shaping Iraq’s history and development.
He also urged Iraqi Christian business leaders and investors living abroad to come back and take part in reconstruction projects, citing opportunities in sectors including health care and education.
Patriarch Mar Paulus III Nona described the new government’s measures as an important step that could encourage members of the Iraqi Christian diaspora to return and rebuild their lives in the country.
Iraq, a multiethnic country with a Muslim majority, once had a large Christian population estimated at between 1.2 million and 1.5 million before 2003, including Chaldean Catholics, Assyrians, and Syriac Orthodox communities. Over the past two decades, that number has fallen to fewer than 250,000, according to church and humanitarian estimates.
