Around 3,500 slaves held by ISIS in Iraq

About 3,500 people, mainly women and children, are being held as slaves in Iraq by Islamic State militants, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

The Islamic State is responsible for acts that may “amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide”, particularly against minorities, a report said.

It controls large parts of Syria.

At least 18,802 civilians were killed in violence in Iraq from January 2014 to October 2015, and 36,245 civilians were wounded, the report said, calling the figures “obscene”.

Allied groups and Iraqi security forces including Kurdish Peshmerga fighters have also murdered and abducted civilians, it said. “Some of these incidents may have been reprisals against persons perceived to support or be associated with ISIL (Islamic State),” report continues.

The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq and the U.N. human rights office estimated that 3,500 people were “currently being held in slavery” by Islamic State, which seized mainly Sunni-populated areas in the north and west in 2014.

“Those being held are mainly women and children and come primarily from the Yazidi community,” said the joint report issued in Geneva, referring to a non-Muslim minority in northern Iraq viewed by Islamic State as devil-worshippers.

The group seeks to “basically eliminate, purge or destroy minority communities.
“We’ve seen communities like the Yazidi in particular bear the burden of this.

Yazidi were basically given the option by ISIL to convert or to be killed.

The report detailed Islamic State executions by shooting, beheading, bulldozing, burning alive and throwing people off buildings. Doctors, teachers and journalists opposed to its ideology have been “singled out and murdered by ISIL”.

“Children as young as nine, are abducted to be trained sometimes to be used as suicide operatives in IS operations, but also forced to give blood and also take armed combat roles in other parts where conflict is taking place,” Motta said.

Between 800 and 900 children in Mosul had been abducted for military and religious training, the report said.

Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, was recaptured from Islamic State in late December, and the tide of fighting appears to have turned against the group.