A soldier of the Iraqi army was killed inside his house after unknown persons shot him with a silencer and killed him on the spot, in the second killing incident within a week in in a district of Ninewa province where a week ago, the bodies of a man and his wife were found dead.
In the last incident that occurred last night, April 15, unknown persons shot Gavan Hamo Hamid, 44-years-old, a soldier in the Iraqi army, while he was at his home in the Gohbal compound in the Sinuyi sub-district of Shingal district, home to the Ezidi community, west of Ninewa province on the borders with Syria.
Khudeda Chuki, the mayor of Sinuny, said, "The perpetrators stood in front of that soldier's house and asked his daughter to him. They immediately shot him with a silencer pistol in the yard of the house and he died instantly."
The victim is married and was running a food store in his area after returning from duty.
In Mid-March, the local administration of war-torn Shingal declared a midnight to dawn curfew effective from March 16th to further notice for security reasons.
The ban circulated by Shingal polcie command cover pedestrians, motorists and stores as the statement called on the locals to abide by the instructions and stay at home except for humanitarian conditions.
Observers in Shingal say that Iraqi security forces were lately targeted by bombs fired by the groups affiliated to Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK, namely Shingal Resistance Units YBSh (Yabasha).
Seized in August 2014 by the extremist militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria ISIS whom accused the Ezidis of being “heretics,” Shingal has been the scene of tragedy: a genocidal campaign of killings, rape, abductions and enslavement, amounted to genocide lately acknowledged by parliaments of Belgium and Netherlands.
The surviving community fled to safer-heaven IDP camps on Shingal Mount and in the adjacent northern Kurdistan region where tens of thousands still live in tens of camps for Internally Displaced Person IDP.
Thousands of Ezidi women, girls and kids were enslaved and taken as sex slaves. KRG office for rescue of missing Ezidis says 6,417 Ezidis were enslaved by IS when it took over Shingal in 2014 and 2,700 of them have been brought to unknown destiny.
As the war-torn region has not been reconstructed, lack of security, stability, poor infrastructure and inadequate job opportunities makes it hard for the vulnerable community to return home.
Hadi Qassim, a resident of the Gohbal complex and a friend of the murdered person said, "Gavan immigrated to Germany three years ago, but he returned to Gohbal and then joined the army and ran a shop as well. As far as I know, he had no problems with anyone."
The security forces opened an investigation file into the case and no charges have been brought against anyone so far, but the security authorities refuse to make statements to the media about the case.
The perpetrator is unknown and the victim's body was transferred to the Forensic Medicine Department for the purpose of completing the investigations, Qassim added.
Last Saturday, April 9, 2022, the bodies of a man and his wife were found in Sinuny days after their disappearance. The 40-year-old man was a member of the security forces of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior.
"The security forces are investigating the killing of that man and his wife. We will not reveal any information to the media unless the investigations are completed," the mayor said
These incidents came at a time when the security forces in Shingal decided to impose a curfew from 12 pm until 6 am the next day, under the pretext of controlling the security situation.
There are more than eight different armed forces within the borders of Shingal district, including the Popular Mobilization Forces PMF, Ezidikhan (Asayish) security forces, Yabsha, the provincial and federal Police, the Iraqi army, the Ezidkhan Peshmerga and the Kurdistan Regional Government KRG’s Peshmerga forces deployed at a religious shrine.
Yabasha and Asayish Ezidikhan are considered close to the PKK which is fighting Turkey since 1980s and holding territories in Iraqi Kurdistan region IKR and the disputed territories between Baghdad and Erbil.
