VIDEO: Peshmerga liberates Bashiqa, rings church bell, northeastern Mosul

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) - Diverse ethnic and religious natives of the town of Bashiqa, northeastern Mosul, thanked the Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani for liberating their town from the Islamic State (IS) and they called for the reconstruction of the area.

Recently, Kurdish Peshmerga forces liberated Bashiqa, the town that has been under the control of the jihadists for two years.

Following the liberation, Christians raised the cross on top of a church in Bashiqa and along with Ezidis thanked Peshmerga forces and President Barzani for retaking the area from IS.

Peshmerga forces and the engineering team continued to secure the area and clear it from the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted by the terrorists.

The name Bashiqa comes from the Assyrian Neo-Aramaic words “Bet” and “Ashiqa,” meaning “House of lovers.” The town had a population of 140,000 people before the IS took over the city.

The residents of Bashiqa are mostly are Ezidis and a small group of Assyrians and Arab Muslims live there as well.

Moreover, the town is known for its abundant fertile farms.

Bashiqa had been under the control of IS since 2014 after the group emerged in northern Iraq and expanded to different provinces including Nineveh, Diyala, Anbar, and Salahaddin.

Editing by Ava Homa

(Additional reporting by Hoshmand Sadiq)