Abu Bakr Kanaan, director of the Sunni endowment in the Ninevah governorate, said in a statement June 29 there has been “a demographic change, and residents were forced out of the old neighborhoods in return for huge sums.”

Kanaan was referring to the Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict in the governorate that was liberated from the Islamic State (IS) in 2017. Controlling the religious sites in Ninevah is of top priority for the for the warring forces. This is not to mention that there are documents revealing attempts on the part of the Shiite endowment authority to seize control of several religious sites, including 17 locations in the old area, which prompted the governorate’s MPs to hold a meeting June 23, gathering the directors of both the Shiite and Sunni endowment authorities to discuss this conflict.

In a serious expression of their fears of Shiite control over Sunni mosques, the people of Mosul sent a letter June 25 to the highest religious authority in the country, Ali al-Sistani, calling for setting limits to the Shiite endowment office controlling Sunni property, including mosques.

MP for Ninevah Governorate Sherwan Dobardani told Al-Monitor that “armed militias” are “illegally” taking control of the Sunni endowment properties, stressing that “the people of Mosul are angry at the Shiite control of Sunni property.”