Deep in the Iraqi desert, near the highway leading to the Saudi Arabian border, lie the ruins of al-Qusair Church, the oldest church in Iraq and said to be one of the most ancient in the Middle East.
Walking through the sand-coloured ruins of al-Qusair – believed to date back to the 2nd century – is a step back to a pre-Islamic era when Christianity dominated a country which, in the past two decades, has seen its minority Christian population diminish from 1.5 million to an estimated 300,000.
Because of security concerns, the area has long been largely off-limits for Iraqi Christians but, since 2014, small groups have been visiting al-Qusair (also called al-Aqiser). Chaldean Catholics Tony Hana, 31, and his brother Adnan, 21, who both live in Baghdad, have made three such journeys, the first in 2014 and the most recent in 2019.
