Gasps, tears as Iraqis return to IS-destroyed parish

KARAMLIS, Iraq (AP) — There were gasps, followed by tears at a small church in northern Iraq as a group of Christians returned to their parish Sunday to find that everything had been destroyed, including the statue of the Virgin Mary, which Islamic State militants had decapitated before they left.

Keramlis, a Christian town on the Nineveh plains in northern Iraq, fell to IS in August 2014, two months after the extremist group took Iraq's second-largest city of Mosul and surrounding areas, sending most of its inhabitants fleeing.

Shamoun and his wife found their home largely standing, amid a vista of almost completely destroyed houses; but all their electronics and furniture had been stolen.

First when you see it of course it's unsettling, and then you cry because of the situation here and the conditions we are living in now.