Aid to the Church in Need food parcels packed with Christmas goodies have gone out to more than 750 families in Iraq who fled persecution at risk to their lives.

The Christmas hampers were despatched to villages in northern Iraq where thousands of Christians have taken refuge in temporary accommodation after campaigns of violence and intimidation in the cities of Baghdad and Mosul.

Distributing the aid over the past few weeks have been the Daughters of Mary Immaculate (Chaldean Sisters) based in the Kurdish town of Zakho, who went from house to house with the provisions.

Project coordinator Fr Bashar Warda said: “The Sisters have told me just how grateful the people have been to receive the hampers. Many of them are really struggling having left everything behind them to come to the north of the country.”

The provisions – which include rice, sugar, cooking oil, tomato paste, canned meat, milk powder and cheese – have been dispersed to communities around Zakho and Mosul.

Fr Warda, who is rector of St Peter’s Seminary, now in Ankawa, a suburb of the Kurdish capital, Erbil, added: “The people are fed up of having to queue for basic food stuffs and they are also very happy with the quality of what they’re being given by the Sisters.”

Further aid has gone to poverty-stricken families in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, ACN support has also centred on Mosul following the return of most of the 15,000 people who fled in autumn following a wave of violence and intimidation.

Fr Warda said that security was now much improved, giving hope to the Mosul Christians who were desperate to return to their homes and restart their businesses.

He underlined that those still left in Mosul were the city’s poorest inhabitants who desperately need support.

The villages around Zakho where Christians have received the Christmas hampers include Naskadla, Levo and Shansh, which is one of the poorest because it is so remote.

Further aid will be going to a few isolated Christian families in Basra, south-west Iraq, but because of administrative difficulties, they will only receive the help after Christmas.

Fr Warda said Christmas would be quiet across the region, especially in Mosul where once again for the fourth year running Midnight Mass was cancelled.