The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

Isil attack on Kobane is ‘second biggest massacre’ of civilians by the group in Syria

Islamic State fighters killed 146 civilians in their attack on Kobane and a nearby village on Thursday, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says

Islamic State fighters killed at least 146 people in its attack on the Syrian border town of Kobane in one of its largest massacres in the country, monitors said on Friday, with dozens more believed to have been kidnapped.

Eyewitnesses to the massacre, which began with a suicide bombing near a border crossing with Turkey on Thursday morning, said civilians were targeted on the streets with rockets and sniper shots, or executed in their homes.

Rami Abdulrahman, director of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said it was the biggest single massacre of civilians by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) since the killing of hundreds of members of the Sunni Muslim tribe Sheitaat tribe in eastern Syria last year.

The death toll is likely to rise further still. Kurdish officials say the jihadists have taken dozens of hostages from across three different locations in the city.

“We will try to rescue them to save their lives, but we expect they will be executed,” said Nasser Hajj Mansour, an official with the Kurdish administration charged with Kobane’s security.

Isil simultaneously attacked the north-eastern city of Hassakeh, and experts suggest the double-pronged assault was intended to divert attention from losses in its eastern heartlands.

In Hassakeh, the attack sparked the terrified exodus of 60,000 residents, according to the UN. In photographs posted online, a stream of families could be seen leaving Hassakeh on foot, clutching bags crammed with belongings.

Hassakeh is divided into zones controlled by the government and the Kurdish authorities. It has previously played host to waves of refugees from elsewhere as they sought shelter from the violence of Syria’s four year-long civil war.

But on Friday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said an estimated 50,000 people have now been displaced within the city itself, and that a further 10,000 have left northwards towards Amuda town, close to the Turkish border.

It warned that up to 200,000 people could eventually leave the area, amounting to two thirds of the country’s pre-war population.

On Thursday, the UN warned that it was running “dangerously low” on money to support people forced from their homes in Syria, saying that only a quarter of the $4.5bn needed to tackle the crisis in 2015 had been received.

The shortfall has meant that 1.6 million refugees have had their food assistance cut this year, while 750,000 children are not attending school, according to the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres.

Syria’s multi-faceted civil war has all but torn the country apart – more than 230,000 people have died since President Bashar al-Assad’s forces first sought to supress anti-government protests in March 2011.

According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, there have been 56 major massacres to date, 49 of which were carried out by government forces or allied militia.

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11700453/Isil-attack-on-Kobane-is-second-biggest-massacre-of-civilians-by-the-group-in-Syria.html