Iraq offers housing plots to returnee Christians – Shafaq News
2026-07-11T14:00:06+00:00
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.