Fighters of the Islamic State (of Iraq and Syria) have massacred at least 80 men from the Yazidi faith and abducted dozens of women and children, reported Kurdish officials. “They arrived in vehicles and they started their killing this afternoon,” Kurdish official Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters. The massacre, which occurred in the Northern Iraqi town of Kocho, occurred after the Islamic State militants ordered that the men either convert to Islam or be killed. Social media users added that the women and children were threatened with rape, but this could not be independently verified. It is unclear where the abducted women and children, said to be in the hundreds, have been taken. Earlier in the week, unverified reports had claimed that Islamic State militants had started a ‘slave network,’ with hundreds of women and young girls being ‘sold’ to Islamic State members. Thousands of Iraqis from the Yazidi ethnic minority, a group with links to ancient Zoroastrianism, Sufism and other faiths, had been trapped on Mount Sinjar after IS militants surrounded them and cut off food and water supplies. As a result of the humanitarian crisis, the US, Australia and other…
Fathers executed, children and women abducted by the Islamic State
August 16, 2014
