Nearly 30,000 Kurds displaced from city near Kirkuk -aid groups
Nearly 30,000 Kurds have been displaced from a multi-ethnic city south of Kirkuk where sectarian tension flared after Iraqi forces took control of it, humanitarian organisations said on Wednesday.
Most of those displaced from Tuz Khurmato are in need of urgent aid and staying in open shelters, officials from two international humanitarian organisations told Reuters.
A third, Amnesty International, said on Tuesday that satellite images, videos, photos and dozens of testimonies indicate that hundreds of properties were looted, set on fire and destroyed in what appeared to be a targeted attack on predominantly Kurdish areas of the city of about 100,000 people.
The Kurds fled after Kurdish Peshmerga fighters withdrew from the city on Oct. 16, as government forces and Iranian-backed Sh'ite Popular Mobilisation moved in in retaliation for an independence referendum held by the Kurdistan region authorities last month.
