Reports have emerged that the Kurdish militia, the Peshmerga, are blocking aid from being received in the Chrsitian Assyrian town of Qaraqosh in northern Iraq.
Currently the town is controlled by the Nineveh Protection Unit (NPU), the only Assyrian militia in the country.
It is being reported that the Peshmerga are blocking all aid to the NPU who are patrolling the virtually empty town, restricting the clean up of the streets since ISIS were defeated and expelled from the town.
William J. Murray writes on eKurd that “on a recent day, I personally was escorting three trucks of supplies to the NPU, one two-ton truck with food and two pickups filled with bottled water, when the Peshmerga stopped us at their main checkpoint between Erbil and Qaraqosh. I had authorized the aid, which amounted to a 20-day supply of food for the 300-man NPU garrison guarding Qaraqosh.”
“For more than two hours, solutions of varying kinds were explored. Taking certain measures that cannot be discussed here, we were finally able to deliver the aid to Qaraqosh. When we arrived at the NPU warehouse in Qaraqosh, the supplies for the day consisted of two bags of onions – that was all. There, we unloaded 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of rice and other supplies,” he continued.
The Assyrian minority in northern Iraq often complain of discrimination from the Kurdish majority in the region and fear any independence push by the Kurds.
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