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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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| Information | | |
Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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18Jan15
Islamic State releases 200 captive Yazidis in Iraq
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fighters have released at least 200 Yazidis after five months of captivity in Iraq, Kurdish military officials said on Sunday, mostly elderly, infirm prisoners who likely slowed the extremists down.
Peshmerga Gen Shirko Fatih, commander of Kurdish forces in the northern city of Kirkuk, told The Associated Press that almost all of the freed prisoners were in poor health and bore signs of abuse and neglect.
Three were young children, he said.
The militants transported the captives from the northern town of Tal Afar, where they were being held for the past five months after the militants raided their towns last summer. The militants dropped them off on Saturday at the Khazer Bridge, near the Kurdish regional capital of Irbil, Gen Fatih said.
They were being held on Sunday by Kurdish authorities for questioning, he said.
Gen Fatih said that it appears the militants released the prisoners because they were too much of a burden.
"It probably became too expensive to feed them and care for them," he said.
Tens of thousands of Yazidis fled in August when Isil captured the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, near the Syrian border. But hundreds were taken captive by the group, particularly women. Iraqi and international authorities later said that some Yazidi women were sold into slavery.
About 50,000 Yazidis - half of them children, according to United Nations figures - fled to the mountains outside Sinjar during the onslaught. Some still remain there.
The Sunni militants of the Isil view Yazidis and Shiite Muslims as apostates, and have demanded Christians either convert to Islam or pay a special tax. Isil currently holds a third of both Iraq and Syria and is being targeted by US-led air strikes.
[Source: The Telegraph, Ap, London, 18Jan15]
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