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UN: Islamic State may have committed genocide against Yazidis in Iraq Sorry - this page has been removed.
(about 2 months later)
The United Nations human rights office has said that Islamic State fighters may have committed genocide against the minority Yazidi community in Iraq, as well as crimes against humanity and war crimes against civilians including children. This could be because it launched early, our rights have expired, there was a legal issue, or for another reason.
In a report based on interviews with more than 100 alleged victims and witnesses, published on Thursday, it urged the UN security council to refer the situation to the international criminal court for prosecution of the perpetrators.
The report also said Iraqi government forces and affiliated militias “may have committed some war crimes” while battling the insurgency. For further information, please contact:
The UN human rights council launched its inquiry in September after the Islamist militant group seized large swaths of northern Iraq.
The report said the council had found “information that points to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes”, and that the security council should “consider referring the situation in Iraq to the international criminal court”.
There was a “manifest pattern of attacks” by Isis on Yazidis as well as Christians and other minorities as it laid siege to towns and villages in Iraq.
The UN investigators also cited allegations that Isis had used chlorine gas, a prohibited chemical weapon, against Iraqi soldiers in the western province of Anbar in September.
Captured women and children were treated as “spoils of war” and often subjected to rape or sexual slavery, it said.
The report said that Isis’s sharia courts in Mosul had also meted out cruel punishments including stoning and amputation. “Thirteen teenage boys were sentenced to death for watching a football match,” it said.
The UN investigators said it was “widely alleged” that Iraqi government forces had used barrel bombs, an indiscriminate weapon banned by international law, but that this required further investigation.