IS kills 12 to stop 3,000 IDPs fleeing to Kirkuk
Islamic State (IS) may have detained about 3,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and killed 12 in Iraq on Thursday, in an attempt to prevent them from leaving the area, the UN refugee agency UNHCR reported.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – Islamic State (IS) may have detained about 3,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and killed 12 in Iraq on Thursday, in an attempt to prevent them from leaving the area, the UN refugee agency UNHCR reported.
In its Friday report, UNHCR pointed out that IS has captured around 3,000 IDPs in the western Kirkuk Province to use the civilians as a shield against the Iraqi security forces.
"UNHCR has received reports that ISIL [IS] captured on 4 August up to 3,000 IDPs from villages in Hawija District in Kirkuk Governorate trying to flee to Kirkuk city. Reportedly, 12 of the IDPs have been killed in captivity," the UNHCR report said.
In June 2014, IS took control of Mosul, the second-largest city in northern Iraq. The group occupied large swaths of territory in the northern part of the country starting from Nineveh, Diyala, Salahaddin and Anbar.
Security sources told a Kurdistan24 reporter in Kirkuk that the IDPs were from the village of Aslaniya in the west of the Province.
"Jihadists [IS] killed 12 of the IDPs to intimidate the rest who were fleeing from the city to Kirkuk," a security source told Kurdistan24.
The source also noted that the civilians' attempt to escape from Hawija as the military offensive is expected to be carried out by Peshmerga and Iraqi security forces to free the city from IS.
"Many of the IDPs die and get wounded by stepping on Da'esh bombs [improvised explosive devices (IDPs)] while escaping from Hawija," the source said, using the Arabic pejorative term for IS.
According to the UN, about 10 million people in Iraq are in need of humanitarian assistance. Also, 3.4 million people are already displaced from their homes inside Iraq by July 2016.
Kirkuk is home to nearly half a million IDPs most of whom fled from jihadists around the Province.
Kurdistan Region hosts 1.8 million refugees and IDPs. Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Joint Crisis Coordination Center (JCC) predicts that over 500,000 more IDPs will escape to the Region once the Mosul offensive begins.
Editing by Ava Homa