Nov 30, 2009 / 12:01 pm
On Thursday Nov. 26, St. Ephrem's Chaldean Church and the nearby presbytery in the Northern City of Mosul were destroyed when attackers walked in and detonated high explosives. Both buildings were empty at the time and no one was injured.
According to the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) a second bombing occurred shortly after at St. Theresa's Convent which is a few minutes drive away from church and presbytery. Although five Sisters where present in the building when the attack took place, no one was injured.
“We are in total shock,” said one of the sisters to ACN. “The sheer noise of the bomb and the damage it caused terrified us.”
Senior Iraqi priest Fr. Bashar Warda, who has helped coordinate aid after the attacks, told ACN that “we are at a loss to explain why this should have happened” although he speculated that the bombings may have political motives in the run-up to elections next year.