The Hashd al-Shaabi militia has been proceeding to the Iraqi Turkmen city of Talafar and is now only 3 kilometers outside of the city center.
Member of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITC), Aydin Maroof, said that the militia's 11,000 troops are preparing to enter the city.
Maroof said Hashd Shaabi is using 50,000 civilians as human shields and noted that the residents may face a big massacre.
"We contacted the United Nations officials in Arbil and shared our concern about the security of civilians; they shared the same concerns," he added.
Many parties, including Turkey believes that if Hashd Shaabi enters Talafar, then the new victims will be the civilians.
Before Daesh entered the city, around 350,000 Turkmen were living in Talafar.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi said he promised to only let Iraqi police and soldiers into the city.
On October 17, the offensive initiated on Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, with the backing of a U.S.-led coalition.
On November 16, the Shi'ite militia took the control of the Talafar Airport from Daesh terrorists.
Serious human rights violations
Amnesty International says that in previous campaigns, Shi'ite militias have committed “serious human rights violations, including war crimes” against civilians fleeing Daesh-held territory.
The UN in July said it had a list of more than 640 Sunni Muslim men and boys reportedly abducted by Shi'ite militias in Fallujah, and about 50 others who were summarily executed or tortured to death.
The government and the Iraqi officials say a limited number of violations had occurred and were investigated, but they deny abuses were widespread and systematic. No results of these investigations have ever been released, whıch is something the Human Rights Watch criticized last summer.
