UN Chief Lauds Breaking Amerli Siege
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The United Nations’ Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the lifting of a siege imposed by the ISIL Takfiri group on the northern Iraqi town of Amerli has prevented a catastrophe in the area.
“The Secretary-General welcomes the lifting of the siege on the town of Amerli in Iraq,” a spokesman for Ban said in a statement on Tuesday.
“This has averted a major humanitarian as well as human rights disaster," he added.
On Sunday, Iraqi government troops backed by Kurdish forces and Shiite volunteer fighters broke a siege imposed on the Iraqi city by ISIL Takfiri terrorists.
Amerli’s residents had put up fierce resistance against the militants despite severe shortages of food and water.
The residents of the small Shiite Turkmen community about 180 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad had been living under the ISIL siege for more than two months.
“The Secretary-General also welcomes the action of the UN Humanitarian Country Team who, in coordination with the local and national authorities, succeeded in distributing the first of a planned series of life-saving supply convoys to the children and families of Amerli,” the statement said, Press TV reported.
Christophe Boulierac, a spokesperson for the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), also said that the agency has delivered life-saving supplies to the people in the area. He further explained that the supplies had been dispatched from the Iraqi city of Erbil to the area.
The UN had earlier warned that the Shiite Turkmen residents of the volatile town could be massacred if urgent action was not taken to rescue them.
The ISIL terrorists have committed heinous crimes and threatened all communities, including Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians and Izadi Kurds, in Iraq.
