VATICAN CITY – Indian Salesian Father Tom Uzhunnalil, who was abducted by Islamic State militants in Yemen and held captive for more than a year, was freed.

OXFORD, England - Spanish church leaders urged prayers and national unity after two terrorist attacks left at least 19 people dead.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis offered prayers for the victims of a terrorist attack in Barcelona, Spain, that left at least 12 people dead and injured dozens of others.

AMMAN, Jordan – As some Iraqi Christians make a slow return to the region around Mosul following the defeat of the Islamic State group, many say it will take time to rebuild their lives and even longer to rebuild their trust of those who betrayed them.

ROME, Italy – Just days after Iraqi forces completed their recapture of Mosul from the Islamic State, the nation's ambassador to the Holy See has said that they are eager to rebuild the city and have people return home, but it will require help to do so.

COTABATO, Philippines – Cardinal Orlando Quevedo of Cotabato has condemned "in the strongest terms possible" the reported desecration of a Catholic chapel by terrorist gunmen in the southern Philippines.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – A new report estimates that between 50 and 80 per cent of Christians have fled the countries of Iraq and Syria since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011.

MOSUL, Iraq – With the blessing of the cross raised up in the city of Bakhdida May 2, the reconstruction of the towns in the Plain of Nineveh in Iraq destroyed by the Islamic State officially began.

WASHINGTON – The 2017 annual report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom added three "entities" to its list of 28 "countries of particular concern," thanks to a law passed in December.

CAIRO, Egypt – Gunmen attacked a police checkpoint near an historic Orthodox Christian monastery in Egypt, killing one and wounding four.

ROME – Fifteen Franciscan friars continue to live and work in Syria; two of the friars minister in towns controlled by Islamic State forces.

VATICAN CITY – The mother of American journalist James Foley, who was executed by the Islamic State group in Syria, has travelled to Rome to thank Pope Francis for the sympathy and support he gave her family after her son’s death.

ROME, Italy – An Iraqi priest who was forced to flee his village when the Islamic State seized the area in 2014 said the hardship and persecution Christians in Iraq have experienced has taught them what it really means to fully live out their faith.

Before Christmas last year, Wartohi Myrdijian had to worry about the bombs falling on either side of her house in Aleppo. She was most afraid of the crude, unpredictable, improvised bombs that came from the ISIS side of the conflict.

KRAKOW, Poland – Christina Shabo was born under a tree in a refugee camp after her family fled bombing in their Iraqi hometown in 1991.