An apartment complex built by the Knights of Columbus in Ankawa, Iraq, a suburb of Erbil, has been struck in a drone attack.
“Fortunately, the building had been largely evacuated several days earlier due to its proximity to the Erbil International Airport,” the archdiocese said in a statement. The building had housed workers for the archdiocese as well as young families displaced by earlier violence in the region, which is roughly 60 to 90 miles west of the Iranian border. No casualties were reported.
ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News, posted video of the attack on social media, saying a “a missile and a drone fell in two separate instances” throughout the evening.
The attack took place around 8 p.m. local time, March 4, the archdiocese said. Named after Blessed Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, the apartment complex was funded entirely by the Knights to house Christian refugees displaced during the war in 2014–2018.
A nearby convent belonging to the Chaldean Daughters of Mary Immaculate also was damaged during the attack.
‘Remember and pray’
“We are now in a time once again where we pray for the solidarity and support from our brothers and sisters around the world, that these times of violence and war will come to an end, and that our suffering people may yet have a chance to return to lives of peace and dignity,” Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil said in a statement.
The archdiocese encouraged Christians around the world “to remember and pray for the many marginalized people in Iraq, including the small and still threatened Christian minority struggling to remain in their native land.”