Iraqis escaping from ISIL violence speak out

KIRKUK, Iraq

An Iraqi has told the Anadolu Agency of his suffering as he tried to escape the violence instigated by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the northwestern city of Tal Afar.

Turkmen-populated Tal Afar city, a strategic location in Iraq near the Syrian border, has been under the control of militant groups led by ISIL since June. Thousands of Turkmens have fled from the city following ISIL attacks.

With a population of over 200,000, Tel Afar is known as Iraq’s largest town.

Ganim Muhammed, a former Tal Afar resident, told the Anadolu Agency his 12-hour journey of escape with his wife and six daughters to Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk.

“There is no life security in Tal Afar. People are caught in the middle of the clashes between the Iraqi army and ISIL,” Muhammed said.

He claimed that the Iraqi army targeted places that are vital for Tal Afar such as water tanks, public hospitals, power plants and wheat silos. “Children who were traumatized after the aerial bombardments cannot sleep at night,” he said.

Muhammed claimed that ISIL militants asked all Iraqi civil servants to denounce working for the Baghdad government. “They give you a swear-off card,” he said.

Muhammed claimed that ISIL has banned smoking, forced women to wear headscarves and imposed restriction on leaving the town. He described Tal Afar as an “open prison.”

Pointing out that he decided to escape for the safety of his children, Muhammed said: “We set off at midnight. My wife is a teacher. We were able to pass the checkpoints telling she will get her salary in Kirkuk. They didn’t allow in a police officer and his wife who were travelling with us in the car. They had to go back desperately to Tal Afar.”

He said that entering Kirkuk was not easy, either: “Peshmerga make thousands of families wait at the entrance of Kirkuk. You can only enter the city if you can prove a guarantor living in Kirkuk. We gave the name of one of our relatives,” he said.

Nurettin Kaplan, Iraqi Turkmen Front Executive Committee Member and Deputy President of General Assembly in Mosul province, said that ISIL militants are settled in empty houses in Tal Afar, including his own. “Around 200 militants and their families from Syria have settled in empty houses. ISIL has been using some houses as storehouses for food, ammunition and weapons. A lot of shops have been looted in the town,” he added.

Remarking that ISIL militants do not allow people who want to leave Tal Afar, Kaplan said that the militants imprisoned nearly 30 police officers, soldiers, Turkmen politicians and tribe leaders.

www.aa.com.tr/en