Estimated 3,000 people flee armed clashes in northern Iraq

Clashes first erupted on Sunday when the Iraqi army launched an operation to clear the world of YBS forces.

The Iraqi army mentioned the offensive was to dismantle YBS checkpoints that prevented residents from returning to their houses. [File: Essam al-Sudani/Reuters]

Hundreds of individuals have fled a northern Iraqi city amid fierce clashes between the military and a militia linked to a Kurdish separatist group, the army and native Iraqi Kurdish officers mentioned.

At the least 3,000 folks left Sinjar and its surrounding areas on Monday and headed north in the direction of the semi-autonomous Kurdish area to hunt security.

Clashes first erupted late on Sunday when the Iraqi army launched an operation to clear the world of YBS forces, a militia group with ties to the Turkish Kurdistan Employee’s Social gathering (PKK) and principally comprised of members from the Yazidi non secular minority.

The preventing between the Iraqi military and the YBS intensified on Monday, spreading to different areas in Sinjar district.

The Iraqi army mentioned the offensive was to dismantle YBS checkpoints that had prevented residents from returning to their houses and undermined Iraqi state authorities.

Troopers tried to open the roads however got here beneath “heavy fireplace”, the army mentioned in a press release, referencing the presence of “snipers on the rooftops” and mine-riddled roads.

Sherwan al-Douberdani, a provincial deputy, advised AFP that one Iraqi soldier was killed, whereas a senior military official mentioned two different troopers have been injured.

The clashes additionally killed a dozen Yazidi fighters, in line with the military official, who spoke on situation of anonymity.

Most of these displaced by the preventing are actually distributed throughout camps within the Kurdish area, in line with Pir Dayan, director of the migration and disaster response division in Dohuk province, within the Kurdish-run area.

The Kurdistan regional authorities has fashioned a committee to cope with the scenario.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad, a Yazidi enslaved for months by Islamic State group fighters who brutalised her group in 2014, known as on Monday for an finish to the violence.

After years of displacement, latest returnees are as soon as once more compelled to flee their houses resulting from present armed clashes in Sinjar. I name on the worldwide group to intervene & work with the Iraqi authorities to resolve the area's ongoing safety points & defend civilians.

— Nadia Murad (@NadiaMuradBasee) Could 2, 2022

The United Nations mission in Iraq tweeted to sentence the newest violence, saying it was “deeply involved about clashes in Sinjar”, which had “grave penalties for civilians”.

“Sinjaris’ security and safety must be entrance and centre. They’ve suffered enormously prior to now and deserve peace beneath state authority,” the UN added.

The YBS has managed a lot of Sinjar since 2014, when it drove the ISIL (ISIS) group out of the district with help from the PKK.

The PKK’s continued presence within the space has drawn the ire of Turkey, which has been battling the group for the reason that Nineteen Eighties, and has led to common Turkish army offensives on Iraqi soil to root them out.

In October 2020, Baghdad and the Kurdistan authorities signed an settlement to collectively handle Sinjar with a view to restore the state’s maintain over the patchwork of militia teams and competing authorities within the space after the defeat of ISIL. However this has confirmed largely unsuccessful.