CAIRO (Middle East Eye) –
Videos have emerged appearing to show pro-government paramilitary forces in Egypt’s war-torn North Sinai killing alleged militants, including one minor, after arresting them.
One video shows a boy, confirmed by tribal sources to be Anas Al-Tiyaha, a 16-year-old member of the Al-Tiyaha tribe. He can be seen in the video wounded and lying on his stomach, possibly following an explosion, with his right hand torn. He can be heard being interrogated by a man about the frequency of his handheld transceiver. He is later seen being shot with three bullets in the head.
The video was released on 20 August, but the operation took place in the first week of August, tribal sources told Middle East Eye.
Another video shows the execution of a man in his mid-30s, wearing a white jalabiya with his hands tied behind his back. He seems to be begging his captors not to shoot him, as he can be heard saying “Please have mercy on me. God, please have mercy,” before he is shot four times.
The videos were first published on the Telegram social media channel linked to the Union of Sinai Tribes (UST), a pro-government paramilitary faction. The UST fights alongside Egypt’s military against Daesh militants in the Sinai Peninsula’s north, a bloody eight-year campaign that has uprooted thousands and left many towns and villages pulverized.
In earlier footage, the man in the white jalabiya, whom tribal sources said they had identified but declined to tell MEE his name, can be seen along with another person surrendering as he walks half-naked and barefoot towards a group of paramilitaries and soldiers. The caption to that video, which was published on 13 July, read: “The message is clear and it is saying to the rats in their hideouts, ‘You will not have peace’. With every drop of blood of our heroes, necks will fly.”
A fourth video shows an elderly man, whom tribal sources identified as Abu Tarek, a mid-ranking member of Daesh. On 2 July, pages affiliated with different pro-government paramilitaries published a video of Abu Tarek being interrogated by members of the military and paramilitary fighters.
Abu Tarek can be seen wearing a blue vest. In a later post by the Telegram channel of the Bir al-Abd Union paramilitary, pictures of the same man after he was shot dead were posted, with a caption that read “annihilation done”.
One source from the al-Sawarka tribe in Sinai told MEE that the video of Tiyaha’s killing has caused outrage among the region’s tribes. He said that earlier this week, a high-ranking delegation from the military intelligence, accompanied by some MPs, visited several tribes to calm them and assure them of the benefits they will gain after the defeat of the Daesh insurgency.
North Sinai residents have borne the brunt of the eight-year-long campaign in the region between Egypt’s armed forces and Sinai Province, the local branch of Daesh. Militants first began staging attacks in 2011, while associated with Al-Qaeda. Later, they pledged loyalty to Daesh, and began to be known as Sinai Province.
Death tolls in the conflict are not publicly available, but according to a count compiled by independent researchers who maintain anonymity for their safety, more than 1,500 military personnel were killed between 2011 and June 2018.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch believes that over 100,000 of North Sinai’s 450,000 residents have been displaced or left the region since 2013.