- Title: IRAQ/FILE-CRISIS/MASSACRE SURVIVOR Story of Islamic State massacre survivors
- Date: 8th September 2014
- Summary: DIWANIYA, IRAQ (RECENT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) CAMP SPEICHER MASSACRE SURVIVOR MOHAMMED MAJUL HAMOUD SAYING: ''I saw my five cousins and my brother being taken away and I was next. They wanted to give a sip of water and I spoke to him in a Bedouin accent. I said my brother give me a sip of water. He said: Are you Bedouin? I said I am Bedouin from the Shummar tribe.
- Embargoed: 23rd September 2014 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Iraq
- Country: Iraq
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA4TJJ4I9ZR7GC67G0K8R9B8HFZ
- Story Text: The massacre of the Iraqi army detachment at Camp Speicher in June was unprecedented even by the standards of Iraq's decade of sectarian war. It sent panic through Iraq and announced to the world that the Sunni militants of Islamic State were a new kind of foe, determined not only to seize and hold territory but to exterminate sectarian enemies who fell into their hands.
Mohammed Majul Hamoud, a 24-year-old survivor who spoke to Reuters in his home town of Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, said he was spared because he pretended to be a Sunni Muslim Bedouin.
In the worst known massacre during Islamic State's war, Hamoud was held by the militants for 11 days in June and recounted their systematic killings in chilling detail.
He belonged to a group of 1,500 soldiers fresh from basic training. As word came of Islamic State's advance, the group was sent to Camp Speicher near Tikrit city.
For him and other victims' families the killers themselves are not the only villains in the story. They blame the government and local tribespeople in the surrounding Salahuddin province, who they say promised the recruits safe passage but who instead allowed them to be led to their deaths.
Government officials dispute these accounts. They say there was no promise of safe passage, and the unarmed recruits left the safety of the base despite having been ordered to stay.
But more than two months after the massacre, the failure to provide a definitive account of what happened, or even any record of the victims, is undermining efforts to build a government that can unite the country.
''It is a bigger crime to cover up a crime. The Lieutenant Ali Al Freiji and Colonel Ayyoub are being accused by the families of the victims, why aren't they held in custody under investigation until proven guilty?'' said soldier Hassan Khalil Shalal, who escaped the massacre only after pretending he was dead, buried beneath a corpse.
More than 100 relatives of the missing descended on Baghdad this week and stormed the parliament, enraged at the state's failure to explain the fate of their loved ones.
The families vandalised the parliament building, beating anyone they suspected of being lawmakers and shouted "thieves, thieves, they sold our sons" in an expression of disgust with Iraq's political elite.
The new recruits like Hamoud had still not been issued rifles. When they arrived at Speicher they searched its armoury for weapons but found it was empty, realising they would be left unarmed when the fighters approached.
''If every ten soldiers were given a rifle, Speicher would not have fallen and not even Tikrit would have fallen. There was no Islamic State in the beginning (of the attack), it was the tribesmen who were revolting. As soon as we walked out of the base, they came, the tribesmen,'' said Hamoud, sat at home next to his mother and father.
Much of the dispute focuses on the role played by the senior commander for the province, General Ali al-Freiji, and his deputies. Shalal and Hamoud said Freiji and his top officers stopped at Speicher and told the soldiers they had 15 days leave. After efforts fell through to evacuate the troops in a vehicle convoy or by air, Freiji announced an agreement had been brokered to allow them safe passage to walk out and find transport for Samarra, a city to the south, the soldiers said.
Freiji was last seen by his soldiers on the morning of the massacre. State television reported that the general stayed in the Tikrit area, leading combat at another location.
Freiji says the account given by survivors and family members is inaccurate: there was never an offer of safe passage, and the soldiers were never told to leave the base. The government had sent elite troops to protect those besieged, but the soldiers forced their way out, he told parliament.
''I repeat to my brothers, the families of the victims, I swear to God that no order was given (for the troops to leave the base) and whatever is being said is rumours by those who have deserted the camp. Who should we believe these people or those officers who stayed for 70 days fighting with whatever weapons they had left and little means available and those who are continuing to do this today, because it is their duty to protect Iraq and they do not want anything in return,'' said General Freiji, during a recent parliament session to discuss the Speicher massacre.
On June 12, tribesmen entered the base to escort them; most of the soldiers were afraid to go, Hamoud said.
Outside the base, they filed into a long line. They marched on the main highway towards Tikrit. In front of the city's university, they were ordered to lie face down and were handcuffed. "Anyone who moved or raise his head was shot."
From the ground, Hamoud saw a woman approach, and he hoped she was going to shame the gunmen standing over them. Instead she encouraged him.
''They killed anyone who lifted his head. I saw women with them ululating and cars beeping. I saw an elderly woman walk across the street, she was more than 60 years old, she came to chief of the tribe and told him: We know you, you are a good man, but I want you not to leave anyone of those Shia alive, kill them all,'' Hamoud, 24, said.
Hamoud saw children gathering near the long line of men, cars stopping to gawk, and people cheered at the sight of the captured soldiers.
Hatred for the Shi'ite-led government and the army had grown in neglected Sunni majority cities like Tikrit.
The soldiers were handed over to Islamic State fighters who led them on a 20-mile march to Saddam's old palace grounds, where they were blindfolded and executed. Before they were executed, they were given a sip of water and their hands tied behind their backs.
''I saw my five cousins and my brother being taken away and I was next. They wanted to give a sip of water and I spoke to him in a Bedouin accent. I said my brother give me a sip of water. He said: Are you Bedouin? I said I am Bedouin from the Shummar tribe. I was with my uncles in Baiji and when I wanted to leave, there were no cars or anything and I just walked with these soldiers who were marching and they took me with them,'' Hamoud recounted.
Hamoud survived 11 days in captivity by convincing his captors he was a Sunni. He saw his brother and hundreds of others led out to be shot.
Islamic State, which posted video and photographs of the graves on the Internet, said it killed 1,700 prisoners. Human Rights Watch says it has documented with satellite imagery and the Islamic State's own photos and videos the deaths of between 560 and 770 soldiers, and believes the real toll is higher.
At least 3,000 people were taken from Speicher, the New York-based rights group says.
Political leaders have promised to conduct an investigation. But the families say the country's political elite cannot be trusted to give an honest accounting of events that could show officials and tribal leaders to have been incompetent at best, and complicit in mass murder at worst. The Iraqi government has a long list of investigations into controversies that have never been published and remain under wraps.
For Hamoud, who still suffers from the psychological scars of his ordeal, every day seems to be a dream.
''I am shocked until now. I still do not know how I survived. I am still in shock at how I could ever get out of there. After ten days, I let out and they told me that they tortured me to send a message back to the Sunnis who work or serve alongside the Shiites not to do that. They did this so we could go back and tell our people.''
Finally on his 10th day in captivity, an IS fighter said they were being freed.
One of his captors told him he was being tortured to serve as a lesson for Sunnis who wanted to serve in the Iraqi army alongside Shiites.
His group of 11 were driven to a nearby checkpoint and given a number to ring if they were stopped at any Islamic State checkpoint.
The terrified group went to a nearby village, where one of the men had friends.
They stayed at a farm house and his fellow soldiers contacted their families, but Hamoud was afraid of what the other soldiers, who were Sunnis, would do if they discovered he was a Shi'ite.
They knew him as Bandar and he suspected they wondered why he hadn't called his relatives. He overheard the owner of the farm talking about him to the others. The farmer said: "I think Bandar is a Shi'ite and not Sunni but by God I will protect him more than I protect my sons."
The next day, Hamoud confessed his faith, and the farmer assured him he was safe. Hamoud called his father, who asked to speak to the farmer.
- Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None