blurb
The 19 girls were burned to death while hundreds of people were watching in the centre of Mosul. They were punished for refusing to have sex with IS militants. Nobody could do anything to save them from the brutal punishment.
An eyewitness
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ISIS burns 19 Yazidi girls to death for 'refusing sex'
AGENCIES
MOSUL
Militants from the Islamic State (ISIS) group executed 19 Yezidi girls who refused to be sex slaves by burning them alive inside iron cages, according to a website.
The victims were set ablaze in the centre of Mosul in front of a large crowd, ARA News reported, citing activists and witnesses.
"They were punished for refusing to have sex with IS militants," media activist Abdullah al-Malla was quoted as telling ARA News.
"The 19 girls were burned to death while hundreds of people were watching. Nobody could do anything to save them from the brutal punishment," a witness said.
The ISIS jihadists took over 3,000 Yezidi girls as sex slaves after they overran Sinjar in northwest Iraq in August 2014, causing a mass displacement of nearly 400,000 people to Duhok and Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The ISIS continues to hold about 1,800 abducted Yezidi women and girls in Iraq and Syria, according to Kurdistan regional government officials.
During a lightening offensive in 2014, the ISIS captured Mosul, making it the 'capital' of its self-styled Caliphate, which extends across a swathe of territory in Iraq and Syria.
Supported by air strikes from the US-led coalition, by Kurdish Peshmerga troops and a Shia-dominated paramilitary force, Iraqi forces on March 24 began a long-awaited offensive to re-take Mosul from the ISIS.
Meanwhile, fearing the escape of the spoils of their war, the jihadists have substantially increased the security surrounding thousands of Yazidi slaves after a series of dramatic rescue operations striking at the heart of the 'caliphate.'
Smugglers, government officials, lawyers and advocates all say that it will now be much harder to rescue the estimated 3,500 Yazidi women and children still trapped in ISIS-held territory. Another potentially critical problem is the financial crisis engulfing Iraqi Kurdistan, which means less money for costly operations to spirit Yazidis through smuggling routes to Kurdish-controlled territory.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which is suffering partly because of the drop in the global oil price, was providing funds for rescue missions but that money is no longer available. Instead, Yazidi families are trying to borrow cash to cover the costs of ISIS ransom demands and smugglers’ fees for safe houses and transport. So far, more than 2,000 Yazidi women and children have been rescued from ISIS by ransom, escape or release.
The captives were taken in 2014 as ISIS seized control of Sinjar in north-western Iraq, home to hundreds of thousands of members of the minority religion ISIS labelled infidels. ISIS abducted younger women and children and murdered men and older women. Those who could not flee were killed and buried in mass graves.
