An estimated 400 Iraqis from the minority Muslim Yazid sect were poisoned in northern Iraq, apparently from drinking water which was contaminated deliberately.
Daily Taakhi, the newspaper of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, said dozens of inhabitants in the town of Khanki, in the province of Dahouk, 550 kilometers (315 miles) north of Baghdad, were taken to hospital for severe poisoning and many died Wednesday from dehydration.
The newspaper said that the poisoning appeared to be a terrorist act.
It said the incident occurred a few days after writings were found on walls in the northern city of Mosul calling for the killing of Yazidis, who were described as infidels.
Yazidis, estimated at only 10,000, follow an offshoot sect of Shiism and consider themselves part of the Kurdish ethnicity. They mostly live in towns and villages west of Mosul and north of the Kurdish province of Dahouk.