Iraq militias recruit displaced children

Youths taken from camps ahead of Mosul battle

ERBIL // Iraqi militias are recruiting children from displacement camps ahead of the long-awaited operation to retake militant-held Mosul, according to a report from Human Rights Watch yesterday.

Citing testimony from witnesses and relatives, the rights watchdog said two tribal militias in the Kurdish region of Iraq had recruited children from a camp south of Erbil and drove them away to a town near Mosul.

The group said the recruits were intended to reinforce frontline positions against ISIL in Nineveh province, where Mosul is located.

ISIL uses children as frontline fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq and Syria, maintaining an army of child soldiers that it calls “cubs of the caliphate”.

Videos circulated by the extremist group have shown boys killing opponents of ISIL by beheadings and shootings.

“The Iraqi government and its foreign allies need to take action now, or children are going to be fighting on both sides in Mosul,” said Bill Van Esveld, of HRW’s children’s rights division, in the report.

Iraq’s prime minister has pledged that Mosul would be retaken from ISIL this year.

After a string of territorial defeats over the past 12 months, Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, is the last major urban territory that ISIL holds in the country.