Dozens of Yazidis ‘Massacred’ in Northern Iraq
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Insurgents “massacred” some 80 members of Iraq’s Yazidi minority in a village in the country’s north, a Yazidi lawmaker and two Kurdish officials said.
The news came as tribal leaders from Iraq’s Sunni heartland offered their conditional backing for a new government that hopes to contain bloodshed and stop the advance of militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
“They arrived in vehicles and they started their killing this afternoon,” senior Kurdish official Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters. “We believe it’s because of their creed: convert or be killed.”
A Yazidi lawmaker and another senior Kurdish official also said the killings had taken place and that the women of the village were kidnapped.
Yazidi parliamentarian Mahama Khalil said he had spoken to villagers who had survived the attack. They said the killings took place during a one-hour period.
The resident of a nearby village said an ISIS fighter from the same area gave him details of the bloodshed.
“He told me that (ISIS) had spent five days trying to persuade villagers to convert to Islam and that a long lecture was delivered about the subject today,” said the villager.
“He then said the men were gathered and shot dead. The women and girls were probably taken to Tal Afar because that is where the foreign fighters are.”
That account could not be independently confirmed.
ISIL militants have killed at least 500 members of Iraq’s Yazidi ethnic minority during their offensive in the north, Iraq’s human rights minister told Reuters on Sunday.
