PopeFrancis has arrived in Iraq for the first ever papal visit there, and his firstinternational trip since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Covid-19 and security fears have made thishis riskiest visit yet, but the 84-year-old insisted he was “dutybound”.
He will try toreassure the dwindling Christian community and foster inter-religious dialogue– meeting Iraq’s most revered Shia Muslim cleric.
The Pope will alsocelebrate Mass at a stadium in Irbil in the north.
About 10,000 IraqiSecurity Forces personnel are being deployed to protect the Pope, whileround-the-clock curfews are also being imposed to limit the spread of Covid.
Iraq’s PM Mustafaal-Kadhimi greeted the Pope at the airport.
On the plane,Francis said he was happy to be travelling again, adding: “This is anemblematic trip and it is a duty towards a land that has been martyred for somany years.”
He had earlier saidIraqi Christians could not be “let down for a second time”, afterPope John Paul II cancelled plans for a trip in 1999 when talks withthen-President Saddam Hussein’s government broke down.
Pope Francisarrives in Baghdad, vowing to be a “pilgrim of peace”
In the two decadessince then, one of the world’s oldest Christian communities has seen itsnumbers plummet from 1.4 million to about 250,000, less than 1% of thepopulation.
Many have fledabroad to escape the violence that has plagued the country since the US-ledinvasion in 2003 that ousted Saddam.
Tens of thousandswere also displaced when Islamic State (IS) militants overran northern Iraq in2014, destroying their historic churches, seizing their property, and givingthem the choice to pay a tax, convert, leave or face death.
-BBC