As ISIS terrorist group spread the conflict in Iraq from Anbar province to the rest of the country in 2014, the pace of killing of civilians accelerated, a UN report issued on Monday revealed.
But between June 1 and December 10, when the conflict spread from Anbar to other areas of Iraq, at least 7, 801 civilians were killed and 12,451 wounded, Sputnik reports.
ISIS Killing Civilians Faster and Faster: UN Report Says
"ISIL's goal remains to destroy the Iraqi state and society by fermenting violence and division," said Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Iraq Nickolay Mladenov, in a statement published Monday on the UN human rights office's website.
The UN report documents serious violations of international humanitarian law and gross abuses of human rights perpetrated over a three month period by the ISIS, with an apparent systematic and widespread character. These include killings of civilians, abductions, rapes, slavery and trafficking of women and children, forced recruitment of children, destruction of places of religious or cultural significance, looting and the denial of fundamental freedoms, among others.
Cars drive past burning tires after displaced Iraqi Yazidis, who fled a terrorists onslaught on Sinjar, demonstrated demanding more aid at the Bajid Kandala camp in Kurdistan's western Dohuk province, on August 13, 2014. Time was running out for starving Yazidis trapped on an Iraqi mountain as the West ramped up efforts to assist survivors and arm Kurdish forces battling jihadists. AFP PHOTO
"Members of Iraq's diverse ethnic and religious communities, including Turkmen, Shabaks, Christians, Yezidi, Sabaeans, Kaka'e, Faili Kurds, Arab Shi'a, and others have been intentionally and systematically targeted by ISIL and associated armed groups and subjected to gross human rights abuses, in what appears as a deliberate policy aimed at destroying, suppressing or expelling these communities permanently from areas under their control," the UN report said.
The report also details the murder of captured members of Iraqi security forces and of people suspected of being associated with the government by ISIS. Individuals suspected of being disloyal to the terrorist group, including religious, community and tribal leaders, journalists, doctors as well as female community and political leaders have been particularly targeted.
During the reporting period, at least 165 executions were carried out following sentences by so-called "courts" in ISIS-controlled areas.
UN's special envoy to Iraq Nickolay Mladenov
"Iraqi leaders need to move immediately and implement the Government's agenda of national unity and reconciliation in order to put an end to the heinous crimes committed by ISIL,Mladenov said in his statement Monday on the UN's website.
Mladenov will be leaving the UN mission in Iraq as he was selected on February 5 to become the UN's Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and the Envoy of the Secretary-General to the Quartet.