Thousands of Iraqi families bear the burden of IS legacy
Posted April 24, 2019 2:12 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
MOSUL, Iraq — Thousands of families in the Iraqi city of Mosul and elsewhere across the country face crushing discrimination because their male relatives were seen as affiliated with or supporting the Islamic State group when the extremists held large swaths of Iraq.
The wives, widows and children have been disowned by their relatives and abandoned by the state.
Registrars refuse to register births to women with suspected IS husbands, and schools will not enrol their children because they are undocumented. Mothers are turned away from welfare, and mukhtars — community mayors — won’t let their families move into their neighbourhoods.
Iraq has done little to probe the actions of the tens of thousands of men who willingly or by force joined, worked and possibly fought for IS during its brutal 2013-2017 rule.
Philip Issa And Salar Salim, The Associated Press
