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London:
Countries on the front line in the "war on terror" are using the
battle against extremists as a smokescreen to crack down on minority
groups, an international human rights group said on Thursday.
For the fourth straight year, Somalia, Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan
topped an annual index compiled by Minority Rights Group
International (MRG) of countries where minorities are most at risk
of genocide, mass killings or violent repression.
"You see governments who have faced a genuine threat, but the point
is the actions they have taken against the wider civilian
population, including minority civilians, has been justified as part
of the 'war on terror,'" MRG director Mark Lattimer told Reuters.
"It has included disappearances, torture and extrajudicial
executions."
A two-year insurgency in Somalia led by al Shabaab militants, who
have links to al Qaeda and include foreign Islamists among their
ranks, has killed some 18,000 civilians.
The insurgency has put historically oppressed minority groups such
as the Bantu, Gabooye and Yibir at particular risk, the chairman of
Somali Minority Rights and Aid Forum, Mohamed Hassan Daryeel, said.
"If the Yibir go with the government, they will be attacked by the
radical Islamists. At the same time, if they go with the Islamists,
they will be considered terrorists, and if they are neutral they'll
be targeted by all sides."
Daryeel said recent amputations carried out by al Shabaab fighters
were performed on child soldiers forcibly recruited from minority
groups. "They are at the bottom of society, the most disadvantaged,"
he said.
Despite a decline in violence in Iraq, the report said civilian
deaths from violence were still estimated at 300-800 a month over
the past year.
It said minorities continued to bear the brunt of the violence,
especially in the Nineveh area, home to the Shabak people.
"The Shabak community has suffered a lot at the hands of the
terrorist groups and at the hands of the Kurdish 'Assayish' (secret
police)," head of Iraq's Minorities Council, Hunain Al-Qaddo, told
Reuters.
He said around 10,000 Shabak families had fled parts of Mosul to
their homeland in the Nineveh plains for fear of being killed
because of their ethnicity.
The rest of the top 10 list was comprised of Myanmar in fifth place,
followed by Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia,
Nigeria and Israel/Palestinian territories.
Pakistan rose on the list due to an escalating conflict against
different Islamist groups, combined with growing violence in
national politics and suppression of dissidents.
Ethiopia, Eritrea and Yemen were assessed as under greater danger
than a year ago with their governments' involvement in regional
conflicts compounding the risk of repression at home.
African states make up half the report's top 20 list.
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