Shingal Mayor: PKK recruits and kidnaps children from the Yezidi Kurds

ARK News… The mayor of Shingal District (Sinjar) said on Sunday that members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are recruiting and kidnapping Yezidi Kurdish children in the Shingal areas, and transporting them to unknown camps inside and outside Iraq.

The US State Department had said in a report that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its affiliates are still recruiting and arming children and then throwing them into areas of armed conflict, especially in the Qandil Mountains.

In its latest report on child recruitment in the world, the US State Department indicated that the PKK armed hundreds of children in Shingal and put them as combatants in the Shingal Resistance Units, a group affiliated with the Turkish party, and then sent them to the Qandil Mountains to fight the Turkish army.

The mayor of Shingal District, Mahma Khalil, and confirming what was stated in the American report, said that "hundreds of Yezidi children, boys and girls were kidnapped by the PKK", Adding that "The party elements presenting in Shingal are transgressing the Yezidi community in the region, as they militarize the community, recruit children and train them to carry weapons in secret camps," adding, "They also kidnap girls and put them in secret prisons and camps."

Khalil added that "the displaced Yezidis in the displacement camps in the Kurdistan Region refuse to return to their areas in Shingal due to the lack of security and stability and the presence of militias, as well as for fear of their children."

Shingal is currently controlled by the Popular Mobilization militias and others affiliated with the Turkish PKK, and the “loyal” Popular Mobilization militia factions, meaning those who are absolutely pro-Iranian, have great influence in the city and the district. They pay salaries to the PKK and other Yezidi groups that support them and provide them with weapons and supplies.

Source: BasNews, translated from Arabic

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