Pope Phones Displaced Iraqis For Christmas

Pope Francis has made a phone call to some Iraqis forced to flee their
homes, assuring them that they were in his Christmas thoughts.

Francis told refugees at the tent camp in Ankawa, a suburb of Erbil in
northern Iraq, that they were like Jesus, forced to flee because there
was no place for them.

For Christians, Christmas marks the birth of Jesus in a Bethlehem barn
manger, chosen because there was no room for his parents at an inn.

"You are like Jesus on Christmas night. There was no room for him
either, and he had to flee to Egypt later to save himself," Pope
Francis told the Iraqis in the call arranged via satellite phone by
the Italian Catholic television station TV2000.

"I embrace you all and wish for you a holy Christmas."

The Ankawa camp houses mostly Christians driven from their homes
around Mosul last summer in an offensive by Islamic State of the Iraq
and the Levant (ISIL) group.

On Monday, the pope addressed a long letter of support to Christians
in the region, urging them to "persevere" despite the difficulties
they face.

In it, he denounced ISIL as a "terrorist organisation of a size that
was unimaginable before, committing all types of abuses... [and]
striking some among you who have been brutally chased from your lands,
where Christians have been present since apostolic times."
--PUNCH