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Translated from HawarNews.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) reportedly detains civilians who have been abducted from Martyr Rüstem Cudi (Maxmur) Camp in the same place in Iraqi Kurdistan that it holds members from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
News reports revealed this situation on 11 October, noting that civilians who had been abducted from Martyr Rüstem Cudi (Maxmur) Camp were being incarcerated in the same dungeon alongside ISIS gangs in Erbil (Hewlêr).
The KDP has been blockading the Martyr Rüstem Cudi (Maxmur) refugee Camp in Iraqi Kurdistan since 18 July 2019. 12,000 people from Bakûr (North Kurdistan) had to flee there due to the attacks of the Turkish state against the Kurdish people during the 1990s. Although the camp is affiliated with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), it has not taken a stance regarding the blockade of the KDP against the camp, and has not provided any assistance to migrants since 2015.
The KDP has detained journalists, activists and academics who have protested against the attacks of the Turkish state in the region in Iraqi Kurdistan. 20 refugees were also abducted by the KDP from the camp on 11 October. Despite appeals that have been made by the Camp’s Council, civil institutions, the United Nations (UN) and the International Red Cross Movement to release the abductees, the KDP has still not released them.
Leyla Arzu İlhan, a member of the Martyr Rüstem Cudi Camp İştar Women’s Council Foreign Relations Committee, stated that the KDP has kept the people they kidnapped in the same place that also houses ISIS gangs in Erbil (Hewlêr).
Stating that they released four people in five days due to the intense pressure of the Iraqi Kurdistan government, Leyla Arzu İlhan said: “The released people were faced with psychological and physical violence because they stayed in the same place with ISIS gangs. It is a shame to keep Kurdish youth in the same place with ISIS gangs. We call on the KDP to release the abductees immediately. Because they have not committed any crime”.
Drawing attention to the KDP’s relations with Turkey, Leyla Arzu İlhan said: “The KDP’s relations with the Turkish state have a great impact on Maxmur Camp. The KDP’s attitudes towards Başûr people are the same as the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP’s) practices for the Kurdish people in Turkey”, she said.
ISIS gangs brutally attacked Maxmur Camp in August 2014. At the same time, ISIS gangs attacking Sinjar also committed massacres against Yazidis. However, the refugees in the camp resisted the ISIS attacks. After the KDP-affiliated Peshmerga forces and Iraqi forces fled from ISIS attacks, the camp residents formed self-defense forces and resisted the attacks for three days and prevented ISIS from moving to Erbil (Hewlêr).
