Iraq Makes Arrests Over Reports of Sunnis Executed in Falluja

 

Reuters, 13/06 13:09 CET

By Maher Chmaytelli and Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq is investigating allegations that Shi’ite militiamen helping the army retake Falluja have executed dozens of Sunni Muslim men from the city held by Islamic State.

The authorities “are following up on the violations and a number of arrests have been made,” government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi said on Monday after a regional governor said 49 Sunni men had been executed after surrendering to a Shi’ite faction.

Suhaib al-Rawi, governor of Anbar province where Falluja is located, said on Sunday that 643 men had gone missing between June 3 and June 5, and “all the surviving detainees were subjected to severe and collective torture by various means.”

The participation of militias in the battle of Falluja, just west of Baghdad, alongside the Iraqi army had already raised fears of sectarian killings.

Falluja is a historic bastion of the Sunni insurgency against U.S. forces that toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, in 2003, and the Shi’ite-led governments that followed. 

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Source: euronews.