UN expresses concern over rights abuses against Sunni Arabs

The United Nations has expressed its concern over the "worrying trend" of widespread human rights abuses against Sunni Arab Muslims by security forces in a recently liberated Iraqi town, saying religious groups accuse them of supporting ISIS.
"Reports indicate that Iraqi security forces and Kurdish security forces and their respected affiliated militias have been responsible for looting and destruction of property belonging to Sunni Arab communities, (and also for) forced evictions, abductions, illegal detention and, in some cases, extra judicial killings," said Cecile Pouilly, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
She was referring to the recent liberation of the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar from ISIS, also known as ISIL and IS, last month.

"We are particularly concerned about the situation of some 1,300 Sunni Arab Iraqis stuck near Sinjar in the no-man's-land between Kurdish security forces and ISIL," the official said.
Sunni Arab communities face increasing violence, including the lack of access to basic services and essential goods like water, food, shelter, medical care from other ethnic and religious groups which accuse them of supporting ISIS.
Though attacks against Sunni Arab Muslims who were perceived to be supporters of ISIS has been documented throughout the period of this civil war but the "situation is worsening."

"They face a very difficult fate because when they are under ISIL rule, they endure very terrible conditions... And once those areas are being freed from ISIL, they again face persecution and harassment and sometimes even more than that," Pouilly said.

Yazidis, among Iraqi's smallest minorities, as well other religious groups including Sunni Arab Muslims, who refused to toe the extremist group's line, faced severe abuses when ISIS controlled Sinjar.
Northern Iraqi town Sinjar, which ISIS captured last year, was liberated last month by the Iraqi Kurdish Security Forces Peshmerga with the help of US-backed coalition airstrikes.