Baghdad:
An international watchdog group says women and girls from Iraq’s Yazidi minority have endured horrors while held captive by Islamic State extremists.
In a report issued today, the London-based Amnesty International says IS fighters took them as slaves when they captured their town in northern Iraq, then forcibly married, “sold” or gave them as “gifts” in August to militants or their supporters. Some committed suicide, fearing to be raped.
The report was based on interviews with over 40 former captives.
In their summer onslaught, the IS group targeted indigenous religious minorities across the country’s north, including Christians and followers of the Yazidi faith, forcing tens of thousands from their homes.
The Yazidis are a centuries-old religious minority viewed as apostates by extremists in Iraq.
