Said Khuededa Qasim
Said Khuededa Qasim

Shingal – Peshmerga militiamen shot a young Ezidi man on Saturday morning in northern Iraq.

The Ezidi Said Khudeda Qasim was searching for garden construction materials in the abandoned village of Pirkasim in the north of Shingal region near the town of Khanasor, when Peshmerga soldiers opened fire on him and other Ezidis.

Said Khudeda was hit several times in the chest and bled to death on the spot, according to his family. Other Ezidis were slightly injured, eyewitnesses told. The village Pirkasim is uninhabited and used to belong to Sunni Arabs who have joined the terrorist organization Islamic State.

The gunmen, members of the so-called Rojava Peshmerga, a militia founded by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and composed of oppositional Kurds from northern Syria, did not provide any further details to Khudeda´s family. Said Khudeda recently returned to Shingal as a refugee in order to rebuild his family´s home. He was neither armed nor part of any combat troop.

The Rojava Peshmerga – originally established to shift the balance of power at the expense of the Syrian-Kurdish YPG – are known as KDP-affiliated troops. The government has therefore not been reluctant to deploy those along the border with northern Syria between Rabia and Shingal where Rojava Peshmerga frequently close the border crossing for civilian goods or fighters of the political rival YPG/YBS. The gunmen´s commander, a Kurd from Dohuk, declined to comment on the incident.

Said Khudedas´s body was first brought to Dohuk and then buried by his family in Shingal.

ezidiPress