UN human rights investigators have for the first time accused so-called Islamic State of committing genocide against Yazidis in Iraq and Syria.
(BBC)- A report says IS has subjected members of the religious group it has captured to the “most horrific of atrocities”, killing or enslaving thousands.
The group’s aim is to completely erase the Yazidi way of life, it warns. The report says major powers should do more to help the Yazidis, at least 3,200 of whom are being held by IS.
IS, a Sunni jihadist group, regards Yazidis as devil-worshippers who may be killed or enslaved with impunity.
In August 2014, IS militants swept across north-western Iraq and rounded up thousands of Yazidis living in the Sinjar region, where the majority of the world’s Yazidi population was based.
Men and boys over the age of 12 were separated from women and girls and shot if they refused to convert “in order to destroy their identity as Yazidis”, according to the report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria.