Iraq: Staggering death toll, sexual enslavement, killing of child soldiers: UN report
“ISIL continued to subject women and children to sexual violence, particularly in the form of sexual slavery,” the report states.
The report also documented alleged violations and abuses of international human rights and international humanitarian law by the Iraqi Security Forces and associated forces, including militia and tribal forces, popular mobilization units, and Peshmerga.
Concerning reports have been received of unlawful killings and abductions perpetrated by some elements associated with pro-government forces. “Some of these incidents may have been reprisals against persons perceived to support or be associated with ISIL,” the report states. “Moreover, as civilians move around the country, fleeing violence, they have continued to face government restrictions on their ability to access safe areas. Once they reach such areas, some have experienced arbitrary arrest in raids by security forces and others have been forcibly expelled. The conduct of pro-government forces’ operations raises concern that they are carried out without taking all feasible precautions to protect the civilian population and civilian objects.”
The discovery of a number of mass graves is documented in the report, including in areas regained by the government from ISIL control, as well as mass graves from the time of Saddam Hussein. One of the mass graves uncovered reportedly contains 377 corpses, including women and children apparently killed during the 1991 Shi’a uprisings against Saddam Hussein in the east of Basra.
The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Iraq, Ján Kubiš, said “despite their steady losses to pro government forces, the scourge of ISIL continues to kill, maim and displace Iraqi civilians in the thousands and to cause untold suffering. I strongly reiterate my call to all parties to the conflict to ensure the protection of civilians from the effects of violence.”
“I also call on the international community to enhance its support to the government of Iraq’s humanitarian, stabilization and reconstruction efforts in areas liberated from ISIL, so that all Iraqis displaced by violence can return to their homes in safety and in dignity and that affected communities can be reestablished in their places of origin,” he said.
“I urge the government to use all means to ensure law and order, necessary for the voluntary return of IDPs to their place of origin — a task of primary importance given the recent wave of violence and killings, often of sectarian nature, notably in Diyala and Baghdad,” SRSG Kubiš said.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein warned that the civilian death toll may be considerably higher, and called for urgent action to rein in the impunity enjoyed by the vast majority of the perpetrators of violence.
“Even the obscene casualty figures fail to accurately reflect exactly how terribly civilians are suffering in Iraq. The figures capture those who were killed or maimed by overt violence, but countless others have died from the lack of access to basic food, water or medical care,” High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said.
“This report lays bare the enduring suffering of civilians in Iraq and starkly illustrates what Iraqi refugees are attempting to escape when they flee to Europe and other regions. This is the horror they face in their homelands.”
The High Commissioner also appealed to the government to undertake legislative amendments to grant Iraqi courts jurisdiction over international crimes and to become party to the Rome Statute.
— Read more in Report on the Protection of Civilians in the Armed Conflict in Iraq: 1 May – 1 October 2015 (UN Assistance Mission for Iraq and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 19 January 2016)
