ISIS Massacres 90 Yazidis, Abducts 100 Women in Northern Iraq, Says Iraqi Officials

ISIS Persecution of Iraq's Religious Minorities - Yazidis
ISIS Persecution of Iraq's Religious Minorities - Yazidis

Islamic militants killed 90 members of Iraq's Yazidi minority in a northern village and taking more than 100 women captive, a Yazidi lawmaker and two Kurdish officials said on Friday, according to Reuters.

"[Militants] arrived in vehicles and they started their killing this afternoon," senior Kurdish official Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters. "We believe it's because of their creed: convert of be killed."

The report of the ruthless attack on the village of Kojo comes after U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the ISIS' siege that had trapped roughly 20,000 Yazidis on Mount Sinjar has been broken.

Upon receiving reports of civilians being attacked, U.S. forces bombed several Islamic State vehicles near Sinjar, according to a statement released by Central Command Friday.

The women abducted from the village about 12 miles south of Sinjar were being taken to northern cities of Mosul and Tal Afar, placed controlled by the militants, official said, according to CNN.

Prior to Friday's report, fighters with the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), had killed at least 500 people from Kurdish-speaking ethnic and religious group during their offensive in the north, according to Iraq's human rights minister.

The Sunni militants had also buried alive some of their victims, including women and children, and some 300 women were kidnapped as slaves, according to Reuters.

The Islamic State, which has declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria, has prompted tens of thousands of Yazidis and Christians to flee for their lives during their push to within a 30-minute drive of the Kurdish regional capital Arbil.

Since the ISIS invaded Iraq, harrowing accounts of genocide and grave human rights violations against the Iraqi Christians and minorities continued to surface. Many of which have prompted an international outcry against the militants' atrocities.  

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