3 Christian women killed, wounded in Mosul

NINEWA / IraqiNews.com: Two Christian women were killed and another one, from the same family, was injured in an armed attack in northern Mosul , a police source said. “Unknown gunmen killed two Christian sisters and injured their mother in al-Qahera neighborhood in northern Mosul ,” the source told IraqiNews.com. “The armed men shot and killed one of the two sisters in front of her house while she was waiting for the bus and then stormed the house and opened fire on the family, killing the other sister and injuring their mother, who was rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment,” he explained. “The two bodies were sent to the forensic medicine department in Mosul ,” he pointed out. Several Christian families have fled Mosul throughout the past days, while Iraqi security sources said that a few Christians were killed in separate incidents in the city, signaling an increase in the wave of attacks against religious communities in the northern volatile city. Mosul , the capital city of Ninewa , lies 405 km north of Baghdad . The original city of Mosul stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient biblical city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial areas on both banks, with five bridges linking the two sides. Despite having an amount of Kurdish population, it does not form part of the area controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdistan RegionG). There are different communities in Mosul like Christians, Shiites and Kurds along with a Sunni majority. The fabric Muslin, long manufactured here, is named for this city. Another historically important product of the area is Mosul marble. The city is also a historic center for the Nestorian Christianity of the Assyrians, containing the tombs of several Old Testament prophets such as Jonah, Yunus in Arabic, and Nahum. SH (S) 1