Iraqi Turkmens ‘left for dead’ in desert

Hürriyet Photo, Selçuk Şamiloğlu

Thousands of Turkmen refugees who fled ISIL violence in Telafer are being abandoned to their fate under 50 degrees of hot weather in the desert A humanitarian tragedy is unfolding in Iraq as Turkmens who fled the advance of the feared Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are now succumbing to the region’s scorching summer sun as refugees. And with death approaching, many refugees are apoplectic at Turkey and Kurdistan’s indifference to their plight.
 
“There is always someone to look after Kurds and Arabs in Iraq, but there is no one to look after Turkmens. Turks were calling Telafer ‘Little Istanbul;’ why doesn’t Turkey take care of us now?” said Eyat Suttu, 35, noting that said his wife had been seriously ill for five days but that he had not been able to bring her to a hospital because the Iraqi Kurdish peshmarga had not let them enter Arbil.  

“We are going to die here under the sun in the dust. Just kill all of us at once and this torture will be finished for all of us,” he said.

On June 15, ISIL, who had recently renamed itself as the Islamic State (IS), seized the control of the northern Iraqi city of Telafer, a largely Turkmen city. 

Thousands of Shiite Turkmens first fled to the northwestern city of Sinjar in order to flee to either Kirkuk, Baghdad, Karbala of Najaf. However, they have been kept waiting for days in 50-degree weather in the desert by peshmarga forces at the Hazer security checkpoint just outside Arbil.

Hazer is the main security checkpoint between Arbil and ISIL-controlled Mosul. Outside the checkpoint, there are thousands of people from new-born babies to the elderly, who have been trying to survive in tents...

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