Amnesty International says it has uncovered 'gruesome' evidence of ethnic cleansing in northern Iraq by Islamic State.
The NGO says the massacres and abductions being carried out by IS are proof of a wave of war crimes against minorities.
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 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.”
