Mass execution of Shias by ISIS may amount to war crimes: UN

The United Nations has claimed that the mass execution of Shias by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the city of Mosul may amount to "war crimes and crimes against humanity."

Citing the accounts of 20 survivors and 16 witnesses, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said on Monday that up to 670 inmates from Badush prison were gunned down by militants on June 10 in Mosul, reported The Independent.

She claimed that about 1,000 to 1,500 prisoners were loaded on trucks and were drove to an uninhabited area where Shia inmates were separated from Sunnis. They were then asked to kneel down on the ground and were shot in a row by ISIS fighters.

Pillay said that such cold-blooded and intentional killings of religious minorities after singling them out may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Kurdish officials in Irbil also confirmed the involvement of ISIS in targeted killings after they took over Badoush and other prisons.

The group has targeted religious minorities in the past too and has carried out forced conversions, abductions, trafficking, slavery and sexual abuse in the areas under its control in Iraq and Syria, the report said.