\n Hundreds of families have been driven out of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk in apparent retaliation for a recent attack by the Islamic State group, Amnesty International said on Monday.\n<\/p>\n
\n Authorities in the Kurdish-controlled city demolished the homes of hundreds of Arab residents and ordered them to leave Kirkuk in the wake of the attack on October 21, the London-based rights group said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Those displaced include an estimated 250 families who had fled to Kirkuk, which lies in an oil-rich area around 240 kilometres (150 miles) north of Baghdad, from other areas in Iraq.\n<\/p>\n
\n An additional 190 families were said to have been displaced from nearby villages by Kurdish Peshmerga and Asayesh forces.\n<\/p>\n
\n Amnesty said those forced from their homes were told to return to their places of origin or moved to camps, after being suspected of helping IS coordinate its attack.\n<\/p>\n
\n Three days of clashes left at least 46 people dead, mostly members of the security forces.\n<\/p>\n
\n The governor of Kirkuk province, Najmeddin Karim, told AFP at least 81 jihadists were killed while several others were detained.\n<\/p>\n
\n Amnesty's report quoted residents as saying homes were demolished on October 25, a day after Karim announced the attack was over.\n<\/p>\n
\n Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty's deputy director for research in Beirut, said destroying homes without military necessity amounts to \"a war crime\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Forcibly evicting and displacing Sunni Arab residents of Kirkuk is unlawful and cruel.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Kurdish authorities must immediately put an end to unlawful destruction of civilian property and forced displacement,\" Maalouf said.\n<\/p>\n
\n The brazen raid on Kirkuk appeared to be an attempt by IS to divert attention from Mosul, where a major offensive is under way to retake the city from the jihadists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hundreds of families have been driven out of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk in apparent retaliation for a recent attack by the Islamic State group, Amnesty International said on Monday. Authorities in the Kurdish-controlled city demolished the homes of hundreds of Arab residents and ordered them to leave Kirkuk in the wake of the attack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-30508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n