Rome Newsroom, Mar 4, 2021 / 07:20 am
Iraqi Catholics have asked Pope Francis to bless a statue of the Virgin Mary that was desecrated by the Islamic State.
The Marian statue was decapitated in the Christian village of Karamles, between Mosul and Erbil, during the Islamic State's occupation of the villages in the Nineveh Plains from 2014 to 2017.
Fr. Samir Sheer, director of Radio Mariam in Erbil, told the Italian news agency SIR that the statue remains "without hands because they were cut off by the terrorists."
"Originally the statue was also without a head, which was recovered and reattached. In these hours its restoration is being completed," he said.