Young volunteers have been clearing dust and debris from St. Thomas church in Mosul, as the Iraqi city occupied by Islamic State militants seeks to sweep away the horrors of a brutal three-year rule and welcome back members of minority faiths. The Syriac Catholic church, dating from the mid-1800s, was looted by the hardline Islamist movement after it invaded Mosul in 2014 and has been abandoned ever since. The militants were finally driven out of Iraq’s second largest city in 2017.
