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Islamic State atrocities reported around Mosul, says UN Islamic State atrocities reported around Mosul, says UN
(about 3 hours later)
Islamic State fighters have reportedly massacred scores of people around its Iraq stronghold of Mosul in the past week, UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville has said, citing preliminary information from sources in the area. Fresh evidence of atrocities and human rights abuses by Islamic State in and around Mosul have emerged, including massacres and sexual enslavement.
On Sunday, Isis reportedly killed 50 former police officers held in a building outside Mosul, and last Thursday Iraqi security forces discovered the bodies of 70 civilians in houses in Tuloul Naser village south of Mosul, Colville said. As coalition troops converged on the Iraqi city, the UN highlighted preliminary reports of mass killings in the surrounding areas, the latest in a long line of crimes against humanity – including the attempted genocide of religious minorities and dissidents, and broadscale sexual enslavement – that have come to characterise Isis’s activities in Syria and Iraq.
One report stated that in Safina village, about 30 miles south of Mosul, 15 civilians were killed and their bodies thrown into the river in an attempt to spread terror, and six men, apparently relatives of a tribal leader fighting against Isis, were tied to a vehicle and dragged around the village. The UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said Isis militants reportedly killed 50 former police officers held in a building outside Mosul on Sunday, and that last Thursday Iraqi security forces discovered the bodies of 70 civilians in houses in Tuloul Naser, a village just south of the city.
“The six men were also allegedly beaten with sticks and gun butts. It is not clear what happened to them subsequently,” he said. In another village, 15 civilians were reportedly killed and their bodies thrown into the river in an attempt to spread terror, while six men who were related to a tribal leader fighting against Isis were tied to a vehicle and dragged around the village and beaten with sticks and rifle butts, he said.
Isis fighters had also reportedly shot dead three women and three girls and wounded four other children, allegedly because they were trailing behind during a forced relocation from Rufeila village. “We very much fear that these will not be the last such reports we receive of such barbaric acts by Isil,” Colville, was quoted by Reuters, using an alternative name for the group.
“The victims were lagging behind because one of the children had a disability. She was apparently amongst those shot and killed,” Colville said. In another atrocity, Isis fighters reportedly shot dead three women and three girls who were lagging behind a group of civilians that the terror group was relocating to the city. The women and children were delayed because one of the girls, who was shot, was disabled.
The sources of the information included civilians and established sources in northern Iraq that the UN had used in the past. Colville said the new allegations and informationhad come from civilians and established sources in northern Iraq that the UN had used in the past.
“It’s a mix of sources, and obviously some of them we can’t even come close to identifying, or even the locations, for protection reasons, particularly for those in areas that are still held by Isil, and in other cases there’s a major battle [going on].” Concerns over the treatment of civilians have taken centre stage in the battle of Mosul, which was announced last week and aims to reclaim the city from Isis.
Some reports came from Iraqi government sources but also needed verification, he said. As many as a million civilians still live in the city and its environs, and humanitarian officials expect around 200,000 people to be displaced in the first few weeks of fighting, pitting an array of forces including the Kurdish peshmerga paramilitary, the Iraqi army and special forces, Shia militias allied with Iran, American warplanes and military advisers, as well as Turkish forces positioned to the north of the city, against 5-6,000 Isis fighters dug in the city.
“We very much fear that these will not be the last such reports we receive of such barbaric acts by ISIL,” Colville said, adding that the UN human rights office was urging Iraqi government forces and their allies not to take revenge on civilians and to treat Isis fighters in accordance with the law. Human rights officials believe Isis is moving residents into the city to use them as human shields as the noose tightens around Mosul, and the killings are designed to discourage locals from rising up against the group.
The UN was also concerned about evictions of hundreds of displaced people in Kirkuk following a surprise Isis attack there, which Colville said could “significantly complicate the already alarming situation of mass displacement in the region”. The executions were in line with past atrocities carried out by the group in its rampage across the Nineveh plains of northern Iraq. When it conquered the towns surrounding Mosul, the group evicted the vast majority of the area’s Christian population which had lived there for two centuries, and launched a campaign of genocide against the ancient Yazidi community, capturing thousands of women and girls who were sold into sexual slavery.
A major operation to retake Mosul, Isis’s urban redoubt in Iraq, began last week. On Sunday Kurdish troops backed by foreign special forces including a Turkish contingent advanced on the strategic town of Bashiqa, pushing to within five miles of Mosul. When it captured Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, the group carried out a mass slaughter of up to 1,600 Shia army cadets in its single worst atrocity of the wars in Syria and Iraq. Isis also destroyed innumerable other shrines and heritage sites.
More evidence of crimes is likely to be unearthed as the self-proclaimed caliphate recedes into the desert. Several mass graves were uncovered in Yazidi homeland of Sinjar when it was recovered from Isis earlier this year.
Concerns have also mounted over possible abuses or revenge killings of suspected Isis members by the militias taking part in the campaign. The Shia militias in particular have been implicated in a range of violations like forced disappearances and displacement after defeating Isis.
Combat inside the densely populated urban centre of Mosul will be particularly challenging, since the militants have had more than two years to prepare for a defense.
So far at least 5,000 people have been displaced from Mosul’s outskirts amid the ongoing operation, including hundreds who fled to poorly equipped camps in Syria. Refugee camps near Mosul that have already been prepared can house up to 60,000 people.
“People who have fled from surrounding villages and towns tell us they’ve been driven to despair waiting long days and weeks of hunger before they could flee to safety,” said Wolfgang Gressman, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s chief in Iraq. “Once again we call on the warring parties to put the safety and protection of Iraqi civilians as their top priority. This long protracted nightmare has to stop.”
By Tuesday, Iraq’s elite counter-terrorism units had advanced to within 2km of Mosul’s eastern edge, with Isis militants launching counter-attacks to distract the advancing troops. Last week the terror group hit the city of Kirkuk, and had launched attacks on the desert town of Rutba.