Churches in Mosul have been converted into prisons by jihadists of the Islamic State according to an Iraqi news website.
Fides News Agency reported that recently detainees were taken, blindfolded and handcuffed to the Chaldean Church of the Immaculate Conception, in eastern Mosul.
There are also reports that a monastery in the city named St. George’s has been transformed into a female detention center stoking fears that women will be “forced to suffer sexual abuse.”
The reports come one week after militants from the Islamic State destroyed the convent of the Chaldean Sisters of the Sacred Heart, which they previously used as a base of operations.
Among those confirming the use of Churches by the Islamic State is Rebwar Audish Basa, Procurator of the Order of St. Anthony sant’Ormisda of the Chaldeans.
Basa fears “that a possible military offensive for the liberation of Mosul could inevitably lead to consider churches as targets to hit, since they have become logistic bases of the jihadists.”
“The destruction of [ancient] churches would be an irreparable damage and loss,” he said.
