MOSCOW, October 12 (RIA Novosti) - More than 20,000 Kurdish immigrants participated in a protest against the Islamic State (IS) extremist group on Saturday in Dusseldorf, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
Police noted that the demonstration was peaceful. The protesters marched through the city's downtown waving Kurdish flags.
The participants of the demonstration sought to draw attention to the Kurdish city of Kobani in northern Syria that is being currently besieged by IS militants.
Earlier on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that more than 550 people have been killed since the siege of Kobani began on September 16. According to the organization, IS militants have seized some 40 percent of the city.
The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has been fighting the Syrian government since 2012. In June 2014, it launched attacks to northern and western Iraq.
For the past several weeks, IS fighters have besieged Kobani, one of the largest towns in the Kurdish region of Syria bordering Turkey. The US-led anti-IS coalition has conducted a series of airstrikes against IS positions, however the siege of the city continued.
