Islamic State militants have killed at least 500 members of the Yazidi religious minority during their violent rampage across northern Iraq, the country's human rights minister told Reuters.
The Sunni jihadists even buried some of their victims alive, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, Iraq's human right's minister, told the news agency. News of the killings come as thousands of Yazidis, the region's most ancient religious sect, fled their homes in the Kurdish region town of Sinjar to the mountains where they remain trapped without food and water.
"We have striking evidence obtained from Yazidis fleeing Sinjar and some who escaped death, and also crime scene images that show indisputably that the gangs of the Islamic States have executed at least 500 Yazidis after seizing Sinjar," al-Sudani told Reuters.
Yazidis, whose religion is based off Zoroastrianism, are viewed as "devil worshipers" by the militants. They fled to their homes to escape being killed or being forced to convert to Islam. But hundreds did not make it.
"Some of the victims, including women and children were buried alive in scattered mass graves in and around Sinjar," al-Sudani told Reuters.
Some 300 women and children were also kidnapped as slaves, the human rights minister said.
The militant group, formally known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, threw the north into chaos when they swooped in and declared a caliphate at the end of June. Kurdish troops have been unable to stop the rebels from taking over key northern cities, prompting the U.S. to authorize air strikes in the region last week.
But the human rights minister said more countries need to join the fight against the relentless jihadists.
"The international community should submit to the fact that the atrocities of the Islamic State will not stop in Iraq and could be repeated somewhere else if no urgent measures were taken to neutralize this terrorist group," Sudani told Reuters.
