Thousands Of Christians Flee As ISIS Militants Burn, Loot Churches

BY ANUGRAH KUMAR, CHRISTIAN POST CONTRIBUTOR

June 16, 2014|7:36 am

Christians in Mosul city in northern Iraq are fleeing en masse with others, as militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, who captured the city last week, are now looting and burning churches and forcing all women to wear the Islamic veil.

Assyrian International News Agency reports that the Sunni group ISIS – also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – has gone on a rampage, looting and burning government buildings, raising its black flag and burning churches throughout Mosul, the capital of the Nineveh Province.

Men from ISIS, an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq that was formed last April, have bombed an under-construction Armenian church in a Left Bank neighborhood near al-Salaam hospital, the agency says, adding that the Church of the Holy Spirit has also been looted.

ISIS has warned all women of Mosul, including Christians, to wear the Islamic veil, and have set up checkpoints throughout the city to implement the warning, the agency adds.

Militants have entered Christian areas near Mosul, and have occupied the Assyrian village of Qaraqosh, according to World Watch Monitor. They have also entered the St. Behnam Monastery, it adds.

Vatican publication Fides reports that Christians are among the tens of thousands who are fleeing en masse to the rural Nineveh Plain.