UNITAD report reveals ISIS’s systematic destruction of Iraqi cultural heritage

NEWSROOM — The United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by ISIL, or UNITAD, unveiled a 32-page report on Sunday, detailing the extensive damage inflicted on Iraq’s cultural heritage by the Islamic State between June 2014 and August 2017. The report describes ISIS’s actions as “war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

The report emphasizes that ISIS systematically targeted religious and cultural sites that did not align with their interpretation of Islam. During their occupation of cities and villages across Nineveh and other Iraqi governorates, ISIS destroyed numerous heritage sites, primarily through bombings.

“ISIL damaged and/or destroyed at minimum several dozens of Shi’a, Sunni, Christian, Yazidi, and Kaka’i cultural heritage sites in the aforementioned locations,” the report states.

Significant incidents of destruction include the demolition of “some 30 religious structures belonging to the Shi’a Turkmen community in Bashir and Tal Afar,” and “at least two Sunni shrines in and near Tikrit.” The report also cites “some 20 cultural heritage sites, including mosques, shrines, husseiniyat, and cemeteries belonging to mostly the Shi’a Shabak community in villages surrounding Mosul city,” as well as “several Sunni shrines in Hiit, Rawa, and Husayba.”

The report also highlights the devastation inflicted on the Yazidi and Kaka’i communities, with “some 28 Yazidi shrines or temples around the Sinjar Mountain and in the Bashiqa-Bahzani villages,” and “at least five Kaka’i shrines, along with other cultural and religious objects in Wardak, Tel al-Ban, and Gazakan villages.”

ISIS also repurposed several cultural sites for military and administrative uses. “At least ten Christian sites were burnt, damaged, vandalized, looted, and in some cases used by ISIL for military training, shooting practice, courts, and detention facilities,” the report notes. “Christian symbols and icons such as crosses, bells, ancient scriptures, books, and the statutes of religious figures were removed, burnt and destroyed.”

UNITAD concludes that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that the damage and/or destruction caused by ISIL members to cultural heritage sites and objects in Nineveh, Salah al-Din, Kirkuk, and al-Anbar governorates between at least 10 June 2014 and 26 August 2017 may amount to destruction or willful damage of cultural property as a war crime, unlawful attacks against civilian objects and destruction of civilian property as war crimes; and persecution as a crime against humanity.”