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The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are being accused of genocide and crimes against an ethnic group by the investigators of the United Nations, concerned with the compliance of the human rights. The United Nations officials say that the terrorist group`s insurgents have stated that one of their objectives is to eradicate the Yazidi minority, that lives, mostly, in the northern part of Iraq.
The Yazidis are not only an ethnical group, but also a religious minority. Their religion, Yezidism, is similar Zoroastrianism, and also to the old Mesopotamian beliefs. They are said to be in grave danger because of the Islamic State`s so called ″mission″ to wipe them out.
“Members of Iraq’s diverse ethnic and religious communities, including Turkmen, Shabaks, Christians, Yezidi, Sabaeans, Kaka’e, Faili Kurds, Arab Shi’a, and others have been intentionally and systematically targeted by ISIL and associated armed groups and subjected to gross human rights abuses, in what appears as a deliberate policy aimed at destroying, suppressing or expelling these communities permanently from areas under their control,”
says the report of the United Nations.
One of the United Nations` senior official, Hanny Megally, a specialist in human rights, says that the report of the UN indicates the Islamic State to have committed genocide. Megally added that all the information they have on the subject ″points in that direction″.
The fighters of the Islamic State are not the only ones suspected by the United Nations to have committed genocide. They also believe that the military forces led by the Iraqi government and some of their related militia are responsible for war crimes. Megally said that these forces may have committed fatal attacks against the civilians, torture, kidnapping and may have used barrel explosives.
The United Nations have presented a report which says that, during its 2014 advance in Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant massacred Yazidi people. The extremists executed a large number of Yazidy men above the age of 14 years old. The United Nations also have testimonies from the victims that survived the violence of the Islamic State, by covering themselves with the bodies of other men.
Suki Nagra, the leader of the investigators who elaborated the report, said that it was obvious the attacks against the Yazidis did not just happen out of the blue. She thinks that they have been organized and unfolded in a very clear way.
Nagra also added that there have been constant reports from people who witnessed these attacks. These people claim that orders were transmitted, in many cases by telephone, during the attacks.
The Islamic State did not persecute only the Yazidis. Every religious group different from the Sunni traditions, which the IS partakes of and in whose name they fight, was forced to convert or wiped out. In some cases, says Suki Nagra, even the Yazidis or non-Yazidis that accepted to convert were taken as hostages and executed, in order to raise the number of victims and intensify the effect of the propaganda led by the Islamic State. Such orders were given by more significant figures of the extremist group.
The Islamic State fighters` number has been increased. The report of the United Nations reveal that, even if most of the extremist insurgents were Syrian and Iraqi, there also were fighters that came to ISIL from outside these states. A lot of westerners have travelled to Syria to enroll in the Islamic State and fight to bring the apocalypse, as this is the historical and religious purpose of the terrorists led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the eighth caliph. The United Nations estimate that foreigner have come to fight alongside ISIL from more than 10 countries.
If many of the Yazidi men were killed by the Islamic State, their wives and daughters were taken as hostages or brought into sexual slavery, according to a witness, the same who reported 2 girls, one of 6 years old, the other of 9 years old, being raped by ISIL insurgents. Also, another disturbing and tragic case is the one of a 19 years old pregnant woman. She has been raped constantly for more than 2 months. The aggressor was one of the fighters of the Islamic State, who claimed he was a doctor. The woman reported that he sat on her stomach, saying that her baby has to die, because, otherwise, another infidel would be brought into this world.
As for the young Yazidi boys, children around the age of 8, their lives were spared but they had to convert and become Sunni Muslims. They were integrated into the Islamic State`s training program and they stated to learn how to use weapons. According to some who have escaped from the IS encampments, they all had to watch beheadings videos.
The actions and crimes of the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant are one of the most terrible cases of violence for political and religious purposes. Nagra says that thousands of Yazidi boys have been taken by force and transformed into Islamic State`s new generation of fighters. The Islamic State is responsible for the death of 602 Albu Nimr members. Albu Nimr is a Sunni tribe that fights against the caliphate of the Islamic State. They have been declared apostates of Islam but the ISIL and, according to the teachings of the Sunni Islam, reckoned by the Sunni to be the true meaning of the Sharia, such apostates` fate is to be executed by the real followers of the Prophet`s model. The Albu Nimr victims were murdered in the Iraqi province of Anbar.
Nearly 1,700 Iraqi military were taken as hostages by the Islamic State. Most of them were beheaded or shot. According to a witness that was in contact with Suki Nagra, the insurgents would kick the heads around as if they were playing soccer.
The United Nations` report shows that the Iraqi army and the militiamen who fought alongside them also committed murder, abduction and torture. It was in the summer of 2014 when the fight between the two parties, the Iraqi forces and the Islamic State extremists, intensified. Then, a lot of settlements have been destroyed by the fire of war. The militiamen seemed very keen to realize their objective, and nothing could stand in their way.
“Armed groups claiming to be affiliated to or supporting the Government also perpetrated targeted killings, including of captured fighters from ISIL and its associated armed groups, abductions of civilians, and other abuses,”
is the report`s comment on this matter.
Also, the investigators report that the Iraqi military forces executed a number of 43 prisoners. The killing happened in June and took place at a police station. Furthermore, over 70 Sunni civilians were killed in the Diyala province, in the eastern part of Iraq.
Image Source: BBC
