Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Baghdad

HRW accuses Kurdistan of detaining men, boys escaping Mosul

 HRW accuses Kurdistan of detaining men, boys escaping Mosul

Iraqi refugees in Mosul

Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Kurdistan authorities are detaining men and boys fleeing battles between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in Mosul, even after security vetting proves them clean, according to Human Rights Watch.

According to the organization, the detentions occurred from 2014, when Islamic State took over several Iraqi regions, and late last January.

“The KRG forces have detained over 900 displaced men and boys from five camps and the urban area of Erbil”, according to a report releases by HRW on Sunday. “Detainees were held for up to four months without any communication with or update for their families,” it added.

Those detained were caught over suspicions of having links to the extremist group, and their whereabouts were not revealed to their relatives, according to interviews made by HRW representatives with the families of eight of the alleged detainees.

“Displaced families told us they had trusted the security screening process and assumed their loved ones would be back within a day or two,” said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Now, months later, some of those same families are telling us that they would rather have stayed in Mosul and risked dying in an airstrike than to have their husband or son disappear.”

Since the emergence of IS in 2014, HRW has been regularly critical of alleged human rights abuses by all parties to the conflict in Iraq, including government forces and allied militias.

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