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.
