The United Nations has released a report documenting the extensive atrocities committed by ISIL fighters against Yezidi women, men and children after the battle for Sinjar, Iraq, in 2014. The report contains “accounts of systematic and widespread killings, sexual violence and sexual slavery, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, forced conversions and forced displacement.” The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) compiled the report after interviewing Yezidi survivors who fled Sinjar in 2014. According to the UN, at least 360,000 Iraqi Yezidi have been displaced from their homes and are in need of critical psychological and humanitarian assistance. More than 3,500 women and girls of the Yezidi and other minority groups remain enslaved by ISIL. As stated by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, ISIL’s actions “constitute a serious and deliberate attack on the most fundamental human rights and are an affront to humanity as a whole.”
A copy of the full report is available on the UN OHCHR’s website.
Compiled from: UN report details testimony of Yezidi survivors of ISIL atrocities in Iraq, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights News (August 18, 2016).