The 84-year-old pope traveled more than 1,400 kilometers during his visit to Iraq.
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On Sunday, the pope visited the city of Mosul, where he called on Christians to remain in the country, prayed for the victims of the military conflict and heard the memories of local Muslims and Christians about the terrorist group under the Islamic State.
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Francis called on Christians in Iraq and the Middle East to remain in their homeland.
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He said that the exodus of Christians from Iraq and the region was doing incalculable harm to the society they were leaving.
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Attacks by the “Islamic State” have forced thousands of Christians to leave Iraq’s Nineveh province, and the Christian community in Iraq has shrunk to about 400,000.
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Before the US-led invasion in 2003, there were about 1.5 million Christians living in Iraq.
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On the first day of his visit on Friday, Francis met with the Prime Minister and President of Iraq and visited churches in Baghdad.
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On Saturday, the Pope met with the influential Shiite cleric, Ally as Sistani, in influential Shiite clergy and visited Ur, who is mentioned in the Bible as the residence of the Old Testament patriarch Abram.
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