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Islamic State militants have publicly executed 19 women by burning them alive after they refused to have sex, according to reports.
The women had been taken as sex slaves by jihadis in the Iraqi city of Mosul and were placed in cages which were set alight in front of hundreds of people, eyewitnesses said.
“Nobody could do anything to save them from the brutal punishment,” a witness told Syrian agency ARA News.
The UN estimates Islamic State is holding an estimated 3,500 Yazidi women and children as slaves in northern Iraq and Syria.
The terror group has carried out brutal treatment to followers of the ancient religion, who they consider to be “devil worshippers”.
Militants have been provided with manuals that justify the enslavement of unmarried women.
While Yazidi boys as young as eight have been forced to convert to Islam before they are trained as soldiers or suicide bombers.
Skye Wheeler, of Human Rights Watch, said: “The longer they are held by Isis, the more horrific life becomes for Yazidi women, bought and sold, brutally raped, their children torn from them.”
In August 2014, 5,000 people were killed and 400,000 forced to flee when Islamic State advanced on Yazidi areas around Sinjar.