The Najda al-Nahriyya Prison

This prison was located in the Najda al-Nahriyya (River Rescue) Police Department building on the Kournish al-Siyahi Street in Mosul. The department reported to the Nineveh Provincial Police Department and was tasked with monitoring the Tigris for drownings and potential floods or other natural disasters. Two months after capturing Mosul in June 2014, ISIS converted the building into a prison. Senior officials in the Iraqi government and civilians who were friends or had business links with members of the Shabak sect, a Shia minority that mainly live in the Nineveh Plain in Mosul, were detained in this prison. Detainees also included ISIS members who were accused of committing violations such as stealing from confiscated homes. According to witnesses, ISIS used part of the building as a real estate court after confiscating the money, properties, lands, and livestock of Christians, Shia, Yazidis, and ‘apostates’. Former detainees in the prison say they witnessed torture and executions inside the prison. Prisoners who had relations with Christians were threatened with being divorced from their wives. The main names associated with this prison are the prison judge Hassan al-Eferi and the interrogator Muhannad al-Eferi, who was a former lecturer at the Faculty of Biology of Mosul University. After the expulsion of ISIS from Mosul in 2017, the Nineveh Police Department reconstructed the building, added more caravans, and reopened it as a river rescue police department.