Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

UN: ISIS Murdered 163 Mosul Residents in One Day | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
Select Page
Media ID: 55375904
Caption:

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein attends the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland June 6, 2017. (Reuters)


Erbil – United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein accused on Tuesday the ISIS extremist group of murdering 163 people as they were attempting to flee the western part of the Iraqi city of Mosul on June 1.

He told the UN Human Rights Council: “The brutality of ISIS and other terrorist groups seemingly knows no bounds.”

“Yesterday, my staff reported to me that bodies of murdered Iraqi men, women and children still lay on the streets of the al-Shira neighborhood of western Mosul, after at least 163 people were shot and killed by ISIS to prevent them from fleeing,” he added.

“My staff have also received reports of missing people from this neighborhood,” he added, without providing further details.

ISIS seized Mosul in 2014, and the operation that began last October to retake the city has pushed hundreds of thousands of residents to flee their homes.

Iraqi forces have retaken all but a handful of areas around the Old City in western Mosul, but the terrorists are fighting in densely populated areas, and have used civilians as human shields at various points in the battle.

On Tuesday Iraqi forces continued their battles in the alleys and neighborhoods of the Old City.

Commander of the Federal Police Force Raed Shaker Jawdat told Asharq Al-Awsat: “Our forces have seized 75 percent of the Zanjili neighborhood and are advancing towards the Bab Sinjar neighborhood, which leads to the Grand al-Nuri mosque.”

Information obtained from the federal police revealed that Tuesday’s operations left 34 terrorists dead, including commander Abou Bara al-Tunisi, who is responsible for the explosives manufacturing factories in the Old City.

Meanwhile, President of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region Masoud Barzani rejected the movements of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) militias in western Mosul and southern Sinjar.

Breaching the Kurdistan border and imposing the conditions on the residents of these two regions is rejected, he said.

He added that the PMF movements, which have not been coordinated with any side, are complicating affairs, stressed Barzani.

He stated during a meeting in Erbil with General Joseph Votel, commander of United States Central Command, that the Kurdistan region had underlined the need for a military, political and administrative plan before launching the operation to liberate Mosul “because we had predicted the emergence of several problems.”