IS Must Be Put On Trial For Genocide, UN Says

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Islamic State jihadists should be prosecuted for committing genocide against the Yazidis in Iraq, the United Nations has said.

The UN human rights office published a report detailing mass killings, torture, rape, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers by the extremists.

The agency said in a statement that IS "may have committed all three of the most serious international crimes - namely war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide".

The report, based on interviews with more than 100 witnesses and survivors of attacks in Iraq between June 2014 and February 2015, highlights brutal IS attacks on ethnic and religious groups, including Yazidis, Christians, Turkmen, Kurds and Shia.

IS, which controls a swathe of territory in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, launched "a series of systematic and widespread attacks" on the Yazidi minority's heartland in the northern Nineveh province last August.

According to the report, the attacks appeared intended "to destroy the Yazidi as a group," which "strongly suggests" IS is guilty of "genocide" against the Yazidi.

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Gallery: Thousands Of Displaced Yazidis

Displaced people from the minority Yazidi sect, fleeing violence from forces loyal to the Islamic State in Sinjar town, walk towards the Syrian border, on the outskirts of Sinjar mountain

Islamic State militants have killed at least 500 members of Iraq's Yazidi ethnic minority during their offensive in the north, Iraq's human rights minister says

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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 Irbil

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A displaced child rests as she makes her way, on the outskirts of Sinjar mountain

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Members of the Kurdish Red Cresent help a displaced woman from the Yazidi sect. Continue through for more pictures

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The report - ordered by the UN Human Rights Council last September following a request from the Iraqi government - found some villages "were entirely emptied of their Yazidi population".

In some Yazidi villages, men and boys over the age of 14 were rounded up and shot, while the women and girls were abducted as the "spoils of war".

Female captives were sold into sexual slavery or handed over to IS members as "gifts", the report said, with witnesses describing girls as young as six screaming for help as they were raped in a house used by IS fighters.

A pregnant 19-year-old told the investigators she was repeatedly raped by an IS "doctor" over a period of two and a half months, and that he deliberately sat on her stomach, saying "this baby should die because it is an infidel. I can make a Muslim baby."

Boys as young as eight were forced to convert to Islam and given religious and military training, including being forced to watch videos of beheadings, the report said.

Yazidis, whose ancient religion has elements of Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrianism, are considered to be devil worshippers by the Sunni Muslim militants.

The jihadists have also ruthlessly targeted anyone perceived to be connected with the Iraqi government, the report said, pointing to the massacre last June of up to 1,700 cadets from the Speicher army base, after they reportedly surrendered.

A mass grave - believed to contain the bodies of victims of the massacre - was uncovered in Saddam Hussein's home town Tikrit, north of Baghdad, on Wednesday.

A former police officer told the investigators IS fighters had slashed the throats of his father, five-year-old son and five-month-old daughter after he showed his police ID card during a search.

The report also accused Iraqi security forces and affiliated militia of a range of serious crimes during their operations against IS, the report said.

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