Hundreds Of Yazidi Women Held Captive By Islamic State Militants In Iraq

An Iraqi Yazidi woman cries at a school where the Yazidis, who fled from ISIS militants in northern Iraq, are taking shelter in the Kurdish city of Dohuk. SAFIN HAMED/AFP / Getty Images

The Sunni militants of ISIS have repeatedly targeted the Yazidis, one of Iraq’s religious minorities who the extremists consider “devil worshippers,” forcing tens of thousands of them to flee their homes.

 

Hundreds of Yazidi women below the age of 35 are being held captive by ISIS militants in schools in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city under the Islamic State’s control, according to an Iraqi official.
Kamil Amin, the spokesman for Iraq’s Human Rights Ministry, told The Associated Press:

“We think that the terrorists by now consider them slaves and they have vicious plans for them. We think that these women are going to be used in demeaning ways by those terrorists to satisfy their animalistic urges in a way that contradicts all the human and Islamic values.”

A U.S. official confirmed that ISIS had kidnapped and imprisoned Yazidi women to be sold or married off to extremist fighters.