Concerns about ‘collective punishment’ after Sunni Arabs flee Iraqi city of Kirkuk
More than a thousand Sunni Arabs displaced from battlefields across Iraq have fled the northern city of Kirkuk in recent days, after they were threatened with expulsion by Kurdish authorities in the city, relief workers said Tuesday. The threat against the displaced Sunnis, which included the demolition of informal housing where they were sheltering, was […]Kareem Fahim writes for The Washington Post:
More than a thousand Sunni Arabs displaced from battlefields across Iraq have fled the northern city of Kirkuk in recent days, after they were threatened with expulsion by Kurdish authorities in the city, relief workers said Tuesday.
The threat against the displaced Sunnis, which included the demolition of informal housing where they were sheltering, was an apparent reaction to a brazen attack on Kirkuk last week by dozens of Islamic State militants that killed at least 80 people — a plot that the authorities said benefited from collaborators inside the city.
The flight of the displaced Iraqis heightened fears, however, of a possible backlash against Sunni Arabs during a government offensive to recapture the northern city of Mosul. The city has been occupied by the Islamic State, a Sunni extremist group, for more than two years, and there are concerns that Sunnis in Mosul and surrounding areas could face retribution for their perceived sympathy for the militants.
