NINAWAH, Iraq
An Iraqi government official has accused Daesh –also known as ISIL – of destroying a historical church early Monday in Mosul.
Dureid Hikmat Tobia, the adviser for minorities of Ninawah province’s governor, told The Anadolu Agency that Daesh blew up St. Markourkas church – a 10th century Chaldean Catholic building.
Daesh also bulldozed a graveyard attached to the church on a nearby hill, Tobia added.
The Chaldean Catholic Church is made up of Assyrian people in Iraq whose language is Syriac, which is also used as the church’s liturgical language.
This is not the first time that the extremist rebels have desecrated Christian graves in Mosul, according to Tobia.
Daesh recently destroyed the ancient city of Nimrud in Iraq. UNESCO director general Irina Bokova has described the incident as a “war crime”.
The purported incidents follow a video released by Daesh militants showing the extremist fighters purportedly destroying ancient artifacts in Mosul’s museum on Feb. 27. The monuments dated back to the 8th century B.C.
Iraq has plunged into a security vacuum since June 2014, when Daesh stormed the northern Iraqi province of Mosul and declared what it called a caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
