Relatives of missing Iraq soldiers storm parliament

Anti-riot police were trying to force out hundreds of protesters demanding to know the fate of relatives who surrendered to militants.

BAGHDAD //Angry relatives of missing Iraqi soldiers stormed the parliament building in Baghdad on Tuesday, attacked MPs and began a sit-in in its main chamber, an official said.

Anti-riot police were trying to force out the hundreds of protesters, who were demanding to know the fate of relatives who surrendered to militants in June, said the official. They also called for commanders to be held accountable, he added.

The demonstrators assaulted some MPs as well parliamentary staff, and smashed chairs in the cafeteria.

Some 1,700 soldiers surrendered to the militant group ISIL in June as its fighters seized second city Mosul and swept south towards Baghdad.

ISIL subsequently released photographs of dozens of men in civilian clothes apparently being executed by firing squad in a desert area, and said that it had killed hundreds in total.

Parliament was supposed to discuss the issue on Tuesday, but the building was stormed before the start of the session, which has now been postponed until Wednesday.

Security forces were swept aside by the initial ISIl-led onslaught, but are now performing better, retaking areas north-east of Baghdad with the backing of Shiite militiamen and Kurdish fighters.

Meanwhile, in a new report, Amnesty International said militants abducted “hundreds, if not thousands” of women and girls of the Yazidi faith. The extremists also killed “hundreds” of Yazidi men and boys, Amnesty said. In at least one incident, the report said militants rounded them up on trucks, took them to the edge of their village and shot them.

The 26-page report adds to a growing body of evidence outlining the scope and extent of the ISIL’s atrocities since it began its sweep from Syria across neighbouring Iraq in June.

On Monday, the United Nations’ top human rights body approved a request by Iraq to open an investigation into suspected crimes committed by the ISIL against civilians. Its aim would be to provide the Human Rights Council with evidence on atrocities committed in Iraq, which could be used as part of any international war crimes prosecution.

In its report, Amnesty detailed how the advance of ISIL fighters expelled an estimated 830,000 people – mostly Shiites and those belonging to tiny religious minorities that barely exist outside of Iraq. They include Aramaic-speaking Christians, Yazidis, a faith that traces to ancient Mesopotamia, the Shabak, an offshoot of Islam, and Mandeans, a gnostic faith.

Most fled as extremists neared their communities, fearing they’d be killed or forcibly converted to the group’s hard-line version of Islam.

Thousands of Christians now live in schools and churches in northern Iraq. Yazidis crowd into a displaced persons camp and half-finished buildings. Shiites have mostly drifted to southern Iraq.

The sudden displacement of the minority groups appears to be the final blow to the continuity of those tiny communities in Iraq. Their numbers had been shrinking since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which triggered extremist violence against them.

“Minorities in Iraq have been targeted at different points in the past, but {ISIL} has managed, in the space of a few weeks, to completely wipe off of the map of Iraq, the religious and ethnic minorities from the area under their control,” said Donatella Rovera of Amnesty International.

The Yazidis, in particular, were harshly targeted as IISIL overran their ancestral lands in August.

In one incident, the report said “possibly hundreds” were killed in the village of Kocho on August 15 after militants told residents to gather in a school.

“They separated men and boys from women and younger children. The men were then bundled into pickup vehicles – some 15-20 in each vehicle – and driven away to different nearby locations, where they were shot,” the report said.

ISIL fighters also systematically seized Yazidi women and children, some as they rounded up villagers, others as they tried to flee the militant onslaught, the report said. Their fate is unclear.

The report said they had obtained the names of “scores of the women and children” seized by the group. It said “hundreds, possibly thousands,” were likely being held.

Some captive women are secretly communicating with their families on mobile phones, Amnesty said. They told their families that some girls and young women were separated and taken away, Amnesty said.

It appears that some teenage girls were taken in groups to the homes of ISIL fighters, the report said.

The brother of one girl who escaped the militants told reporters that his 17-year-old sister was held with another Yazidi teenage girl in a house in the Iraqi town of Falluja. Khairy Sabri said militants threatened to kill his sister Samira if she did not convert to Islam. Sabri said his sister was seized on August 3 and was moved three times.

After fighting intensified between Kurdish forces and the militants, the three ISIL fighters guarding the house fled, allowing the women to escape, Sabri said. Sabri said his sister was otherwise unharmed. Amnesty noted allegations that some abducted women were raped or forced to marry fighters.

The group said detained women who were in contact with their families had not been harmed, but “they believe that others have, notably those who were moved to undisclosed locations and have not been heard from since.”

Mahma Khalil, a Yazidi legislator, called on the Iraqi government and international community to urgently help the Yazidis who are still facing “continuing atrocities” by the militants.

“They have been trying hard to force us to abandon our religion. We reject that because we are the oldest faith in Iraq, that has roots in Mesopotamia,” Ms Khalil said.

* Agence France-Press and Associated Press