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Grieving Iraqis storm parliament

September 2, 2014

The families of Iraqi soldiers abducted by "Islamic State" militants have stormed parliament in Baghdad. Riot police were deployed to remove them from the chambers.

https://p.dw.com/p/1D5Jc
Irak Protest der Angehörigen vcor dem Parlament Archiv 25.08.2014
Image: picture alliance / AP Photo

More than 100 relatives of soldiers abducted by the "Islamic State" forced their way into Iraq's parliament building on Tuesday, demanding information about the fate of their loved ones.

"The protesters stormed a gate in the Green Zone in central Baghdad and were able to push their way into the parliament," lawmaker Abdel-Hussein al-Musawi told the independent website Alsumaria News.

"The protesting families demand the presidential board of the parliament to bring to justice security officials responsible for their children's blood," he said.

Violent protests

According to parliament employees, the relatives were originally scheduled to address parliament about the missing soldiers, but they grew impatient and began to protest violently outside the legislature's chambers.

Witnesses said some of the grieving relatives were wielding sticks, metals bars and stones. They reportedly scuffled with guards and broke some equipment in parliament. Riot police were sent in to remove the relatives from the building.

Missing soldiers

In June, the Iraqi soldiers in question left their base in Tikrit, believing that a ceasefire had been reached with the rapidly advancing "Islamic State" (IS) militants. They were subsequently captured by IS, and their fate remains unknown.

IS later reported that it had executed 1,700 Iraqi soldiers, posting pictures of corpses online. Human Rights Watch has reported that there's strong evidence to suggest that the claims by IS are true.

slk/ksb (AFP, dpa, Reuters)