The Islamic State has reportedly issued a fatwa ordering the elimination of children with Down syndrome and other congenital disabilities, reminiscent of Hitler’s infamous “Aktion T4” program, which administered forced “euthanasia” on an estimated 300,000 disabled persons.
According to the Iraqi activist blog Mosul Eye, sharia judges have ruled that ISIS followers are authorized to kill infants with Down Syndrome or congenital deformities. Already since the religious decree (fatwa) was issued, militants have killed at least 38 children between one week and three months old by lethal injection or suffocation.
In a post on the Mosul Eye Facebook page, the group claims that any child with a disability is now at risk of being killed, and released a brief video showing disabled children. The killings reportedly took place in ISIS strongholds in Syria and Mosul, the northern Iraqi city seized by ISIS in June 2014.
Mosul Eye claims to report directly from Mosul, and has reliably reported on Islamic State incidents in the past. It has been called “one of most accurate chronicles of life under Islamic State rule.”
The group says it has monitored the deaths of several children with Down Syndrome and congenital deformities. They learned of an “Oral Fatwa” issued by the sharia board of the Islamic State authorizing its members to “kill newborn babies with Down’s [sic] Syndrome and congenital deformities and disabled children.”
The Fatwa was issued by a Saudi sharia judge named Abu Said Aljazrawi.
The post also reports that most of the children born with Down Syndrome have been the offspring of foreign fighters who married Iraqi, Syrian and Asian women.
“We recorded more than 38 confirmed cases of killing babies with congenital deformities and Down’s Syndrome, aged between one week to three months. They were killed by either lethel injection or suffocation,” they said.
“As if it is not enough for ISIL to kill men, women and the elderly, and now, they kill children,” they said.
Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter @tdwilliamsrome