Human Rights Defenders Accuse Kurds of Arab Population’s Forced Displacement

• 01.21.2016, 16:18
•  Near East,  World

AFP

The human rights organization Amnesty International claims that thousands of homes have been destroyed in Iraq by Kurdish forces that are supported by Western powers. According to the organization, these are mainly the territories that have been recaptured from the Islamic State militants, AFP reports. 

Human Rights Defenders think Kurdish forces actions must be considered as war crimes, because Kurdish forces "appear to be spearheading a concerted campaign to forcibly displace Arab communities". "Peshmerga forces from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Kurdish militias in northern Iraq have bulldozed, blown up and burned down thousands of homes in an apparent effort to uproot communities in revenge for their perceived support" of IS, Amnesty said.

The representative of Iraqi Kurdistan denied Amnesty International’s allegations in an interview to Sputnik agency, stressing that most of homes in these regions have been destroyed because of the battles between Peshmerga forces and IS militants as they used different weapons. At the same time he said another reason for the destruction of houses are the airstrikes of the international coalition against IS positions.

Amnesty International’s statement is not the first on. In October 2015 the London-based rights group published a similar report about Kurdish forces in Syria, accusing them of war crimes. According to the report Syrian Kurdish forces deliberately demolished civilian homes and forcibly displaced inhabitants "with no justifiable military grounds".

The destruction of Arab villages in Iraq may be related to the intention of Iraqi Kurdistan to include these territories in its autonomy. It is no secret that after several failures of Iraq army, Kurdish forces managed to recapture some of them. And now they try to establish their control over those territories. As an example we may point to the oil-rich Kirkuk. Thus, Arab population displacement from these territories is within this context.