Iraqi Minister of Immigration Evan Jabro meets with Australia’s ambassador to Iraq

BAGHDAD – Minister for Immigration and Displacement in Iraq Evan Faeq Jabro received at here Ministry the Australian ambassador to Iraq Joanne Loudens on matters of cooperation in reconstruction and returning IDPs to their homes. Special topics on the agenda were the still terrible situation of the Yezidis and Sinjar and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi IDPs.

Earlier this month saw the sixth anniversary of the ISIS occupation of Sinjar and the Nineveh Plain and the genocide perpetrated by ISIS on Yezidis, Christians, and Chaldeans-Syriacs-Assyrians.

Syriac-Chaldean Minister Evan Jabro also held a virtual meeting with the Japanese ambassador to Iraq. Japan has been a financial donor in reconstruction of former-ISIS occupied territories in Iraq. In April the UN Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat) received a donation of USD 3.6 million from Japan for reconstruction and peace-building in Iraq through the reconstruction of war-damaged houses and construction of low-cost housing units in Sinjar, Nineveh Governorate.

In a meeting with Syriac Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Khadimi stated that Iraq is “serious about providing assistance to our Christian families and solving their problems. We are glad that Christians will return to Iraq and contribute to its reconstruction. Iraqis of all sects are yearning for a new Iraq that believes in peace and rejects violence.”

For Christian Chaldeans-Syriacs-Assyrians to return to Iraq funding for reconstruction is required. Funding which the Iraqi Prime Minister does not have or does not allocate. Stability, security, the removal of the Kurdish Peshmerga and Iran-backed militias from the Chaldean-Syriac-Heartland in the Nineveh Plain are all essential elements for voluntary return.