April 2007 Mosul massacre

The 2007 Mosul massacre was a mass killing that took place on April 23, 2007 in Mosul, in northern Iraq. A bus carrying workers from the Mosul Textile Factory was hijacked by unidentified attackers. The attackers checked the passengers' identity cards, telling Muslims and Christians to get off the bus. They then drove the bus to eastern Mosul with 23 remaining passengers, all Yezidis, where the hostages were made to lie face down in front of a wall and shot.^[1]

The murders were considered to be a reprisal against the stoning of a Yezidi girl two weeks earlier. The girl, Du’a Khalil Aswad, aged 17 from the village of Bashika, was stoned to death by a large crowd of men in an honour killing, and it was claimed, although never confirmed, that she had converted to Islam. The incident was recorded on mobile phones, but such recordings were not seen by the world until they were distributed over the Internet a few weeks after the event. Iraqi authorities have arrested a number of individuals in connection with the killing.

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