Iraq president waves farewell as Pope Francis ends historic whirlwind visit

POPE Francis yesterday ended his historic whirlwind tour of Iraq, which sought to bring hope to the country’s marginalised Christian minority with a message of co-existence, forgiveness and peace.

The pontiff and his travelling delegation were seen off with a farewell ceremony at Baghdad airport, from where he left for Rome after a four-day papal visit that has covered five provinces across Iraq.

As the Pope’s plane took off, Iraqi president Barham Salih was on the tarmac, waving goodbye.

At every turn of his trip, Pope Francis urged Iraqis to embrace diversity – from Najaf in the south, where he held a historic face-to-face meeting with Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-sistani, to Nineveh in the north, where he met Christian victims of Islamic State’s terror and heard their testimonies of survival.

People gathered in crowds to catch a glimpse of the Pope wherever he went, fuelling coronavirus concerns.

Few wore face masks, especially during the Pope’s stops in northern Iraq on Sunday.

That day ended with an open-air mass in a stadium that drew nearly 10,000 people. Security was tight and most events were strictly controlled.

Public health experts had expressed concern ahead of the trip that large gatherings could serve as superspreader events for coronavirus in a country suffering from a worsening outbreak where few have been vaccinated.

Iraq is in the midst of another wave of coronavirus, spurred by a new, more infectious strain that first appeared in the UK.

In total 13,500 people have died among 720,000 infections.