New massacre feared in Iraqi town of Amerli

THE United Nations has called for urgent action to prevent a massacre of the residents of Amerli, a small town in northern Iraq that has been under siege by Islamic State for the past eight weeks.

Nickolay Mladenov, the UN’s special representative for Iraq, said he was “seriously alarmed” by reports that the town has no power or drinking water and is running out of food and medical supplies.

He called on the Iraqi government to deliver humanitarian supplies and arrange an emergency evacuation.

“The situation of the people in Amerli is desperate and demands immediate action to prevent the possible massacre of its citizens,” he said.

About 400 men have been defending the town, which is home to members of Iraq’s Turkmen ethnic Shi’ite minority. IS considers them apostates who should be killed without being given the option of conversion.

Boys from Amerli, some of them as young as eight, have joined the battle.

Islamic State fighters have already cut off the town by planting mines along access roads and posting snipers to shoot anyone trying to escape. Its forces have also cut water and electricity to the town, home to about 15,000 people.

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Philip Hammond, Britain’s foreign secretary, said last week that Britain was closely monitoring the situation and would be willing in principle to join an international relief effort.

Marzio Babille, Unicef’s Iraqi representative, said that about 5000 children remained trapped. Several hundred people have been wounded in the fighting. “If the city is overrun I am not very optimistic about their fate,” Mr Babille said.

IS fighters have a reputation for barbarity, often beheading their opponents in battle.

Amerli has experienced its share of violence over the years and the Turkmen minority feel abandoned by both Iraq’s government and the international community.

In 2007 al-Qa’ida launched a devastating truck bomb attack on Amerli which killed more than 150 people, injured more than 400 and destroyed at least 100 homes.

Many women were widowed and children were disabled and orphaned. Amerli is therefore under no illusions of what fate would befall it should Islamic State overwhelm its defences.

“After the attack on Mosul, all the Shi’ite Turkmen villages around Amerli were captured by Islamic State,” said Ali Albayati, a local resident. “They killed the people and paraded their bodies outside the villages.”

Michael Knights, a security analyst, wrote in Foreign Policy magazine: “This is Iraq’s other humanitarian crisis, the one no one seems to care about.”

Twice a week the Iraqi army sends a helicopter to bring food to the town but it is a dangerous mission that comes under regular IS rocket attack.

The Sunday Times