Amnesty: 'Gruesome' evidence of large-scale ethnic cleansing by IS

Amnesty has published accounts of survivors who describe how dozens of men and boys in the Sinjar region were massacred, while hundreds, possibly thousands of Yazidi women and children were abducted since IS took control of the region.

Amnesty says the Iraqi government should focus on protecting all civilians - rather than arming Shia militias.

"The group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS) has carried out ethnic cleansing on a historic scale in northern Iraq," the organisation said.

"IS has systematically targeted non-Arab and non- Sunni Muslim communities, killing or abducting hundreds, possibly thousands, and forcing more than 830,000 others to flee the areas it has captured since 10 June 2014.

"Ethnic and religious minorities have lived together in the Nineveh province; today, only those who were unable to flee remain trapped there, under threat of death if they do not convert to Islam."

Amnesty International said it has gathered evidence that several mass killings took place in Sinjar in August. Two of the deadliest incidents took place when IS fighters raided the villages of Qiniyeh on August 3 and Kocho on August 15.

"The number of those killed in these villages alone runs into the hundreds," Amnesty said.

"Groups of men and boys including children as young as 12 from both villages were seized by IS militants, taken away and shot."

“There was no order, they [the IS fighters] just filled up vehicles indiscriminately,” one survivor of the massacre in Kocho told Amnesty.l.

"The massacres and abductions being carried out by the Islamic State provide harrowing new evidence that a wave of ethnic cleansing against minorities is sweeping across northern Iraq,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s Senior Crisis Response Adviser currently in northern in Iraq.

“The Islamic State is carrying out despicable crimes and has transformed rural areas of Sinjar into blood-soaked killing fields in its brutal campaign to obliterate all trace of non- Arabs and non-Sunni Muslims.”

“Instead of aggravating the fighting by either turning a blind eye to sectarian militias or arming Sh’a militias against the Islamic State as the authorities have done so far, Iraq’s government should focus on protecting all civilians regardless of their ethnicity or religion,” said Rovera.

"The people of northern Iraq deserve to live free from persecution without fearing for their lives at every turn.

"Those ordering, carrying out, or assisting in these war crimes must be apprehended and brought to justice.”

Since taking control of Mosul on 10 June, IS militants have also systematically destroyed and damaged places of worship of non-Sunni Muslim communities including Shia mosques and shrines.

Among the ethnic and religious minorities being targeted in northern Iraq are: Assyrian Christians, Turkmen Shia, Shabak Shia, members of the Yezidi faith, Kakai and Sabean Mandaeans. Many Arabs and Sunni Muslims known or believed to oppose IS have also been targeted in apparent reprisal attacks.