UN: Islamic State using mentally disabled Iraqi children

Children’s rights body reports mass executions, crucifixions in areas controlled by jihadist group

By AP and Lazar Berman

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5 February 2015, 5:25 pm

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File: A Yazidi Iraqi woman sits with her children at the Bajid Kandala camp near the Tigris River, in Kurdistan's western Dohuk province, where they took refuge after fleeing advances by Islamic State jihadists in Iraq on August 13, 2014. (AFP/Ahmad Al-Rubaye)

The United Nations said the Islamic State group is systematically killing, torturing and raping children and families of minority groups in Iraq, and it is calling on government forces there to do more to protect them.

In a report issued Wednesday in Geneva, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said it has received reports of “several cases of mass executions of boys, as well as reports of beheadings, crucifixions of children and burying children alive.”

IS terrorists have also been using mentally disabled children as suicide bombers and human shields, the UN said.

Eighteen independent experts prepared the report.

Children from non-Sunni groups, especially Yazidis, Christians, and Shiites, were especially vulnerable, expert Renate Winters told Reuters.

Sunni children were also targeted.

Iraq’s military has been struggling in its fight against Islamic State, and the government has pleaded repeatedly for more weapons and training.

The UN agency urged that more be done, saying Iraq needs to “take all necessary actions to ensure the safety and protection of children and their families.”