Yazidi Villagers Massacred by ISIS

One Yazidi girl among thousands who were able to escape life-threatening conditions on Mount Sinjar to a makeshift refugee camp in Dohuk province in this Reuters image. (Photo: AP)

Militants in northern Iraq have massacred at least 80 men from the Yazidi faith in a village and abducted women and children, reports say. Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters entered Kocho, 45km (30 miles) from Sinjar, on Friday afternoon, reportedly telling men to convert to Islam or die. The group’s atrocities against non-Sunni Muslims have shocked the international community into action.

In New York, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on ISIS members.

In another development, the United States’ military said two of its drones had attacked and destroyed two vehicles identified as belonging to ISIS near Sinjar on Friday morning, after receiving reports from Kurdish forces that the militants were attacking civilians in the village of Kawju.

‘CONVERT OR DIE’
Kurdish officials confirmed the attack on Kocho after it was reported by Yazidi activists based in Washington.

“They arrived in vehicles and they started their killing this afternoon,” senior Kurdish official Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters news agency on Friday. The killings took place over the space of an hour, said a Yazidi MP, Mahama Khalil, who reportedly spoke to survivors. A resident of a nearby village said an ISIS fighter from the same area had given him details of the bloodshed.

“He told me that the Islamic State 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 [the city of] Tal Afar because that is where the foreign fighters are.”

Hadi Pir, a Yazidi activist and member of the Yazidi Crisis Management Team in the US, also said a deadline to convert had been given to the villagers.

The villagers were assembled at Kocho’s only school, after which the men were shot, the activists said. Remaining villagers were then put on buses for an unknown destination.

ISIS-led violence has driven an estimated 1.2 million Iraqis from their homes. Whole communities of Yazidis and Christians have been forced to flee in the north, along with Shia Iraqis, whom IS do not regard as true Muslims.

Separately, fighting flared up on Friday in the mainly Sunni Anbar province, west of Baghdad, parts of which have been under ISIS control.

SANCTIONS
Some leaders of Iraq’s Sunni Muslim minority have said they may work against the militants in cooperation with Iraq’s new Prime Minister, Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is tasked with restoring order.

The mainly Shia Muslim government is locked in a fight with ISIS since the group led an insurrection in the north this summer, making the city of Mosul the capital of a self-declared state which extends into Syria.

Yazidi and Christian people in northern Iraq have faced persecution by the jihadists, prompting US-led air strikes, humanitarian aid drops, and calls for other Western states to arm opponents of ISIS.

Meeting in New York, the UN Security Council made six people associated with ISIS or the Syria-based Nusra Front subject to an international travel ban, asset freeze and arms embargo. Backers of the two groups may also face sanctions, they said.

UK ambassador at the UN Sir Mark Lyall Grant says the impact of this will only be felt in the long term. “We’re not suggesting that this resolution is going to immediately dramatically change the situation on the ground, ” he said. “But it is a first step towards establishing a longer term international framework for tackling this major threat.”

At an emergency EU meeting in Brussels on Friday, the 28 member-states were left to decide individually whether they would arm Iraq’s Kurds, the main opponent of ISIS in the north.

The UK said it would “consider favorably” any request to send arms to the Kurds, while the Czech government said it would be in a position to start deliveries of munitions by the end of the month.

Germany is legally prevented from arming countries involved in conflict, but Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he would go to the limit of “what is legally and politically possible” to help the Kurds and he will travel to Iraq shortly.

Reprint: Iraq Crisis: Yazidi Villagers ‘Massacred’ by IS | BBC

Related: Flight from Hell | CNN Special on Rescues from Iraq’s Mt. Sinjar

Massacre, 52 Hacked, Burnt to Death in Kenya’s Tana River District -By Mark Hanrahan| HuffPost

 

A man waves a machete in front of a burning barricade during Nairobi riots in 2007. Ethnic clashes that saw at least 52 people hacked or burnt to death were the worst attacks since Kenya’s 2007 post-election violence (Photo: AP)

Scores of people, the majority women and children, were killed in ethnic violence in the Tana River district of Kenya on Tuesday.

“It is a very bad incident…. [The victims] include 31 women, 11 children and six men. 34 were hacked to death and 14 others were burnt to death,” said Joseph Kitur, the regional deputy police chief for the area, according to the AFP.

The violence, which took place in the coastal region of Kenya, was between the Orma and Pokomo groups. BBC News reports that the two groups have been embroiled in a long history of conflict, caught up in a cycle of revenge killings over the theft of cattle, as well as grazing and water rights.

Kenya’s Capital FM quoted a police source as saying they believed that the Pokomo attacked the Orma people on Tuesday.

The killings constitute the single worst incident of violence in the country since 2007, when a wave of post-election violence led to the deaths of 1,200 people.

 

 

Reprint: Kenya Killings: Clashes in Tana River District Kills at Least 48 People -By Mark Hanrahan| HuffPost

 

 

Another Day, Another Massacre In Syria (Video)

Activists say another massacre has taken place in Syria just days after nearly 100 people were killed in Houla.

This time, at least 86 people are said to have been killed by pro-Assad militias in and around al-Qubayr in Marzaf district in Hama province.

Al Jazeera’s Tarek Bazley reports.

Missed in May 2012 | Human Rights News

Human Rights News from May 6 – May 31, 2012. Click the image above to be redirected to the slideshow.

Ratko Mladić Arrested for Bosnian War Crimes | WikiNews

Mladic was indicted 15 years ago for genocide in the Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and the 43-month siege of Sarajevo. (Photo: Pascal Guyot/AFP/Getty Images)

Ratko Mladić, otherwise known as “The Butcher of Bosnia,” has been arrested after being sought for over a decade. The 69-year-old former Serbian general and war crimes suspect was arrested on May 26 by Serbian special police in Lazarevo, Serbia. Mladić was accused of war crimes shortly after the 1992–1995 Bosnian War. He was wanted for genocide and crimes against humanity, including the orchestration of a massacre of over 8000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica.

The arrest has prompted protests from Serbian nationalists, who herald Mladić as a national hero and patriot. However, the international reaction to Mladić’s capture is more positive. French President Nicolas Sarkozy praised Serbia’s actions, saying it is another step for Serbia on the path to joining the European Union. Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt gave similar praise, saying that the Serbia’s prospects of joining the EU are “brighter than ever.”

Serbia’s war crimes court ruled that Mladić is fit for trial, despite claims from family and supporters to the contrary. Ratko Mladić’s son Darko claims that his father is too weak to face extradition to The Hague for trial. Mladić could face extradition within a matter of days.

Reprint: Ratko Mladić Arrested for Bosnian War Crimes | WikiNews

Kenya: Slaughter at Dawn| NTV Kenya

Six people were hacked to death and several injured on Wednesday evening following a row over land in Nairobi’s Ruai area. The six were among a group of IDPs who relocated in the area last year. But their stay has been bitterly disputed by some local residents who felt that the plot on which they were resettled had been taken away from them illegally. Source: NTV Kenya.