According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has kidnapped 130 Syrian Kurds children, killed Shia Turkmen, kidnapped and killed Shiite members of the Shabak minority.
Up to 100,000 Christians are believed to have fled for their lives into Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS has also scribbled letters through Christian homes, declared them the property of the Islamic State and exiled the inhabitants.
Religious minorities, such as Christians and Yazidis, make up less than 5% of the Iraq's population.
Human Rights Watch’s Middle East director made a statement that the Islamic state "must immediately stop its violent campaign against minorities around Mosul," He added: "Being a Turkmen a Shabak a Yazidi, or a Christian in [Islamic State] territory may cost you your livelihood, your freedom or even your life."
Lately, a large number of Christians in Iraq led to leave their homes by attacks and intimidation. Only some days after that, the militant of ISIS said hundreds of Syrians were killed; dozens of Iraqi Christian families are fleeing areas controlled by ISIS, hoping to avoid a similar fate.
Civilians from Mosul escape to a refugee camp near Irbil on June 10.
About 52 Christian families left the city of Mosul with an armed group prohibiting some of them from taking anything but the clothes on their backs. Some of the families headed for Irbil — which is currently controlled by Kurdish forces — and others toward the Dohuk province. The majority went to Dohuk, which is 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of Mosul.
A girl fleeing from Mosul arrives at a Kurdish checkpoint on June 12.
The ISIS-appointed governor of Mosul, Salman al-Farisi, announced that any Christian family that planned to remain in Mosul and not to converting to Islam would be required to pay 550,000 Iraqi dinar (about $470).
Iraqi Christian children gather inside the Church of the Virgin Mary for prayers in Bartala, Iraq, a town near Mosul, on Sunday, June 15.
Al-Monitor’s Ali Mamouri considers minorities in northern Iraq are most vulnerable, because they’re frequently without anyone to protect them. “They often reside in border areas among large denominations in the country, which puts them at all times at the forefront of bloody wars in the conflicts between powerful parties,” Mamouri wrote.
“The large religious and nationalist diversity makes the situation even more complicated in those areas, which results in many minorities not affiliated with any major community to be protected.” He added.
Displaced Iraqi Christians settle at St. Joseph Church in Irbil, northern Iraq, on Thursday, August 7.
According to Human Rights Watch, which interviewed local Christian authorities in Iraq, the Islamic State marked Christian homes by painting them with the letter “N”. It stood for “Nasrani“ — Arabic for Christian. Afterwards, they also painted the phrase: “Properties of the Islamic State.” Days later, on July 16, Human Rights Watch said the Islamic State presented the Christians of Mosul with three choices: Convert to Islam, pay a tax paid by non-Muslims — or leave. And if not: “Then there is nothing to give them but the sword.”
“Christian communities are particularly affected: a people fleeing from their villages because of the violence that rages in these days, wreaking havoc on the entire region,” said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a spokesman for Pope Francis.
The Pope said on Twitter: “I ask all men and women of goodwill to join me in praying for Iraqi Christians and all vulnerable populations.”
For ISIS, Shiite Turkmens, who speak a language that derives from Turkish, are consider as apostates. The Washington Post’s Abigail Hauslohner reported two weeks ago at least 40 Turkmens were believed killed in an attack on four farming villages.
According to Hauslohner’s report, Hundreds of families who escaped the villages of Brawawchli, Karanaz, Chardaghli and Bashir have made it to a Shiite Turkmen neighborhood in Kirkuk, which is under the control of Iraqi Kurdish security forces.
The city of Tal Afar, whose population is mostly made up of Turkmen, was caught in the crossfire of sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis during the recent Iraq war — a suicide attack killed 150 people in 2007. The city’s population dwindled from about 200,000 to 80,000 in just a few years.
Iraqis fleeing the violence wait in their vehicles at a Kurdish checkpoint in Aski Kalak on June 10.
Sunni Turkmen make up 1% to 2% of Iraq’s population, according to the State Department. A smaller group of Shia Turkmen live there, as well.
Many reports said that Turkey has begun building a new refugee camp for 20,000 Iraqi Turkmen in northern Iraq.
In June, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) have executed almost 1,700 Iraqi soldiers; as it tweets and claimed they had massacred hundreds of captive Shiite people belong to Iraq’s security forces.
People in Mosul walk on the rubble of the destroyed Mosque of The Prophet Yunus, which is Arabic for Jonah, on Thursday, July 24.
ISIS is also fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria. Assad is a member of the Alawite sect, on offshoot of Shia Islam. And just like many of the minorities, Shiites and Alawites have been labeled as infidels by ISIS.
The Yazidis are ethnic Kurds, one of the world’s smallest and oldest monotheistic religious minorities. This ancient religion worships one God and honor seven angels, including an angel figure held by many Muslims to be the devil.
Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community settle outside the camp of Bajid Kandala at Feeshkhabour town near the Syria-Iraq border on Saturday, August 9.
ISIS has murdered more than 500 of Yazidis who reject to convert to its extreme ideology.
Iraqi authorities have reported that ISIS has kidnapped hundreds of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority after seizing the north-western town of Sinjar. And now, it has forced out of Sinjar thousands of Yazidis, who are facing very hard circumstances in the mountains.
Yazidi women who fled violence in Sinjar, Iraq, take shelter at a school in Dohuk, Iraq, on August 5.
Vian Dakhil raised her voice in the parliament of Iraq – as the only representative of the Yazidi people in Iraq’s parliament – appeared in the following video standing behind rows of solemn-looking men, her voice raw and worn out: “We are being slaughtered!”
Source: True Activist
Related:
Up to 100,000 Christians are believed to have fled for their lives into Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS has also scribbled letters through Christian homes, declared them the property of the Islamic State and exiled the inhabitants.
Religious minorities, such as Christians and Yazidis, make up less than 5% of the Iraq's population.
Human Rights Watch’s Middle East director made a statement that the Islamic state "must immediately stop its violent campaign against minorities around Mosul," He added: "Being a Turkmen a Shabak a Yazidi, or a Christian in [Islamic State] territory may cost you your livelihood, your freedom or even your life."
Christians
Lately, a large number of Christians in Iraq led to leave their homes by attacks and intimidation. Only some days after that, the militant of ISIS said hundreds of Syrians were killed; dozens of Iraqi Christian families are fleeing areas controlled by ISIS, hoping to avoid a similar fate.
Civilians from Mosul escape to a refugee camp near Irbil on June 10.
About 52 Christian families left the city of Mosul with an armed group prohibiting some of them from taking anything but the clothes on their backs. Some of the families headed for Irbil — which is currently controlled by Kurdish forces — and others toward the Dohuk province. The majority went to Dohuk, which is 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of Mosul.
A girl fleeing from Mosul arrives at a Kurdish checkpoint on June 12.
The ISIS-appointed governor of Mosul, Salman al-Farisi, announced that any Christian family that planned to remain in Mosul and not to converting to Islam would be required to pay 550,000 Iraqi dinar (about $470).
Iraqi Christian children gather inside the Church of the Virgin Mary for prayers in Bartala, Iraq, a town near Mosul, on Sunday, June 15.
Al-Monitor’s Ali Mamouri considers minorities in northern Iraq are most vulnerable, because they’re frequently without anyone to protect them. “They often reside in border areas among large denominations in the country, which puts them at all times at the forefront of bloody wars in the conflicts between powerful parties,” Mamouri wrote.
“The large religious and nationalist diversity makes the situation even more complicated in those areas, which results in many minorities not affiliated with any major community to be protected.” He added.
Displaced Iraqi Christians settle at St. Joseph Church in Irbil, northern Iraq, on Thursday, August 7.
According to Human Rights Watch, which interviewed local Christian authorities in Iraq, the Islamic State marked Christian homes by painting them with the letter “N”. It stood for “Nasrani“ — Arabic for Christian. Afterwards, they also painted the phrase: “Properties of the Islamic State.” Days later, on July 16, Human Rights Watch said the Islamic State presented the Christians of Mosul with three choices: Convert to Islam, pay a tax paid by non-Muslims — or leave. And if not: “Then there is nothing to give them but the sword.”
“Christian communities are particularly affected: a people fleeing from their villages because of the violence that rages in these days, wreaking havoc on the entire region,” said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a spokesman for Pope Francis.
The Pope said on Twitter: “I ask all men and women of goodwill to join me in praying for Iraqi Christians and all vulnerable populations.”
Turkmen
For ISIS, Shiite Turkmens, who speak a language that derives from Turkish, are consider as apostates. The Washington Post’s Abigail Hauslohner reported two weeks ago at least 40 Turkmens were believed killed in an attack on four farming villages.
According to Hauslohner’s report, Hundreds of families who escaped the villages of Brawawchli, Karanaz, Chardaghli and Bashir have made it to a Shiite Turkmen neighborhood in Kirkuk, which is under the control of Iraqi Kurdish security forces.
The city of Tal Afar, whose population is mostly made up of Turkmen, was caught in the crossfire of sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis during the recent Iraq war — a suicide attack killed 150 people in 2007. The city’s population dwindled from about 200,000 to 80,000 in just a few years.
Iraqis fleeing the violence wait in their vehicles at a Kurdish checkpoint in Aski Kalak on June 10.
Sunni Turkmen make up 1% to 2% of Iraq’s population, according to the State Department. A smaller group of Shia Turkmen live there, as well.
Many reports said that Turkey has begun building a new refugee camp for 20,000 Iraqi Turkmen in northern Iraq.
Shiites
In June, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) have executed almost 1,700 Iraqi soldiers; as it tweets and claimed they had massacred hundreds of captive Shiite people belong to Iraq’s security forces.
People in Mosul walk on the rubble of the destroyed Mosque of The Prophet Yunus, which is Arabic for Jonah, on Thursday, July 24.
ISIS is also fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria. Assad is a member of the Alawite sect, on offshoot of Shia Islam. And just like many of the minorities, Shiites and Alawites have been labeled as infidels by ISIS.
Yazidis
The Yazidis are ethnic Kurds, one of the world’s smallest and oldest monotheistic religious minorities. This ancient religion worships one God and honor seven angels, including an angel figure held by many Muslims to be the devil.
Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community settle outside the camp of Bajid Kandala at Feeshkhabour town near the Syria-Iraq border on Saturday, August 9.
ISIS has murdered more than 500 of Yazidis who reject to convert to its extreme ideology.
Iraqi authorities have reported that ISIS has kidnapped hundreds of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority after seizing the north-western town of Sinjar. And now, it has forced out of Sinjar thousands of Yazidis, who are facing very hard circumstances in the mountains.
Yazidi women who fled violence in Sinjar, Iraq, take shelter at a school in Dohuk, Iraq, on August 5.
Vian Dakhil raised her voice in the parliament of Iraq – as the only representative of the Yazidi people in Iraq’s parliament – appeared in the following video standing behind rows of solemn-looking men, her voice raw and worn out: “We are being slaughtered!”
Source: True Activist
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