"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraqi military commanders are using executions and beatings to maintain discipline among their troops in northern Iraq where food rations are running out, a leading U.S.-based human rights group says.
Human Rights Watch said Iraqi soldiers who have deserted to Kurdish forces in the north told its representatives that the Iraqi military executed 10 deserters on March 26 and has organised execution squads to prevent others from leaving their posts.
The 26 soldiers interviewed in recent days spoke of extremely low pay, meagre food rations and mistreatment that included beatings and other punishments that left some scarred.
Several soldiers said their officers told them to stay at their posts during U.S.-led air strikes and "die like men."
"Some days were so hungry we would eat grass which we mixed with a little water," a 21-year-old deserter from the Iraqi Fifth Corps told the rights group."
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