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  • Churches Occupied, Mosques Destroyed, Nuns and Orphans Kidnapped in

    Assyrian International News Agency AINA
    July 6 2014

    Churches Occupied, Mosques Destroyed, Nuns and Orphans Kidnapped in Iraq

    By Paula Bolyard
    http://pjmedia.com


    Sister Utoor Joseph (left) and Sister Miskintah, who disappeared on
    late Saturday, June 28 in Mosul (photo: Ishtar TV).Islamists militants
    who seized parts of northern and western Iraq last month posted images
    online Saturday of at least ten shrines and mosques they claim they
    have destroyed in the province of Nineveh. Photos show bulldozers
    knocking down Sunni Arab and Sufi shrines and explosives destroying
    six Shiite mosques.

    Residents of Mosul, which is the capital of Nineveh, said the
    militants have also occupied two cathedrals belonging to Chaldean and
    Orthodox Christians. Crosses on the churches have been replaced by the
    black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group
    which recently declared the establishment of an Islamic caliphate.

    On Tuesday, two nuns and three orphans went missing from an orphanage
    in Mosul. It is believed they have been kidnapped by ISIS militants.
    On Saturday, a senior Christian leader in Iraq appealed for their
    release. "We are appealing for scholars in Mosul and tribal sheikhs to
    help us release two nuns and three orphans," said Chaldean Patriarch
    Louis Sako. "Christians are not party to these events," Sako added.
    "We lived together side-by-side (with Muslims) for 14 centuries. We
    still want to communicate and live together."

    Iraq's Christian community has dwindled to a small fraction of what it
    had once been -- once numbering more than a million nationwide, there
    are now fewer than 400,000 across the country. Nearly all of Mosul's
    Christians have fled since the city fell to ISIS on June 10th; ISIS
    members bombed an Armenian church near al-Salaam hospital and
    ransacked the Church of the Holy Spirit. Two days after the raid on
    Mosul, ISIS imposed Sharia law and began demanding a poll tax from
    Christians. On June 21st, ISIS members raped a mother and daughter who
    could not afford to pay the poll tax and killed four women for not
    wearing veils.

    http://www.aina.org/news/20140706173218.htm

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