UN Envoy calls for investigating Speicher Massacre
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Iraq (SRSG), Mr. Nickolay Mladenov, has called on the Iraqi authorities to conduct a public and independent investigation into the fate of soldiers and other military personnel who were massacred or are missing from the Camp Speicher military base, when it was seized by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated armed groups on 12 June 2014.
“Evidence suggests that a massacre has been committed at Camp Speicher and hundreds of Iraqis lost their lives at the hands of ISIL. It is in the interest of their families and relatives, who remain unaware of the fate of their loved ones, as well as in the public interest, that the Iraqi authorities do all they can to uncover the truth of what has happened to these men, to locate and identify the remains of any who may have been killed, and to undertake all efforts to secure the release of any who may remain in captivity”, Mr. Mladenov stated. “Any person or group of persons responsible of these acts must be held accountable according to law”, Mr. Mladenov stressed, adding that the events that took place at Camp Speicher on 12 June remain of deep concern to the international community.
The United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution on 1 September calling on the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to dispatch a team of investigators to Iraq to inquire into crimes committed by ISIL and associated armed groups as a means of assisting the Government of Iraq and the international community to ensure accountability in relation to those crimes.
On 11-12 June 2014, ISIL and associated armed groups seized large areas of northern and north central Iraq including the Iraqi military base of Camp Speicher located near Tikrit in Salah al-Din governorate. The circumstances of what followed remain unclear. ISIL claimed at the time that it had “executed” some 1,700 captured soldiers and other military personnel from Camp Speicher. Photos and footage posted online by ISIL in the days immediately after the capture of the area, depicted horrendous scenes of a large number of young men being herded onto trucks, transported to a remote location, and then forced to lay on the ground in rows, as ISIL fighters systematically and brutally killed them.