US decries ISIS ‘genocide’ of Christians, Shiites, Yazidis
US State Department unveils somber annual report on religious freedom worldwide
The United States on Wednesday denounced the “genocide” carried out by ISIS against Christians, Shiites and Yazidis, as the State Department unveiled its somber annual report on religious freedom around the world.
The ISIS group “continued to pursue a brutal strategy of what Secretary (John) Kerry judged to constitute genocide against Yazidis, Christians, Shiites, and other vulnerable groups in the territory it controlled,” the State Department said, in its comprehensive look at the situation in more than 200 countries in 2015.
Kerry and United Nations experts had previously used the term “genocide” to refer to crimes carried out by ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria.
In the two war-torn countries, where the ISIS group controls swathes of territory, militants were “responsible for barbarous acts, including killings, torture, enslavement and trafficking, rape and other sexual abuse against religious and ethnic minorities and Sunnis,” the report said.
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