'Corpses Everywhere' After Jihadist 'Massacre'
Updated: 12:54pm UK, Saturday 16 August 2014
Dead bodies were found "everywhere" when Yazidi fighters arrived at a village where jihadists have been accused of carrying out a massacre, witnesses have said.
Officials believe Islamic State (IS) fighters killed around 80 people, mostly Yazidis, after arriving in the northern Iraq village of Kocho and demanding they abandon their beliefs and convert to Islam.
The militants also kidnapped women from the village in Nineveh province and took them to prisons they control, according to a senior Kurdish official.
Yazidi fighter Mohsen Tawwal told AFP by telephone that he saw a large number of bodies in the village.
"We made it into a part of Kocho village, where residents were under siege, but we were too late," he said.
"There were corpses everywhere. We only managed to get two people out alive. The rest had all been killed."
A man from a neighbouring village, who had been told what happened, added: "The Islamic State had spent five days trying to persuade villagers to convert to Islam and ... a long lecture was delivered about the subject today."
"The men were gathered and shot dead.
"The women and girls were probably taken to Tal Afar because that is where the foreign fighters are."
Senior Iraqi official Hoshyar Zebari said: "We have information from multiple sources, in the region and through intelligence, that (on Friday) afternoon, a convoy of (IS) armed men entered this village.
"They took their revenge on its inhabitants, who happened to be mostly Yazidis who did not flee their homes.
"They committed a massacre against the people. Around 80 of them have been killed."
Thousands of Yazidis - people from a minority sect with an ancient religion - have been forced to flee their homes by the IS advance.
The extremist group, previously called ISIS, has swept across a large part of northern and central Iraq, taking Mosul and threatening Baghdad and Kurdish capital Irbil.
On Saturday, airstrikes targeted the group around Mosul Dam. It was not immediately clear if they were carried out by the Iraqi air force of the US.
The IS seized Iraq's largest dam on August 7.
Iraq's human rights minister has said that Islamic State militants have killed at least 500 members of the Yazidi community during their offensive in the north.
Some of the victims, including women and children, were buried alive, Mohammed Shia al Sudani said.
The United Nations Security Council on Friday blacklisted six Islamist militants and threatened sanctions against anyone who helped arm or supply them.
Five members of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, which operates in Syria, and Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al Adnani were included on the British-drafted resolution, which also condemned all aspects of IS's activities and beliefs.
Earlier, EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels agreed to arm Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq.
The meeting of foreign ministers from the 28 EU nations was called by EU foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton and came after several European countries, including France and Germany, said they were prepared to supply weapons to the Peshmerga forces.
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