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It is feared thousands of Yazidi women from Northern Iraq may have suffered torture, rape and other sexual abuse from Islamic State fighters

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militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) posing — Shocking: Teens are among victims after group went on ethnic cleansing rampage

Terrified women captured by Islamic State thugs are strangling each other and killing themselves to escape rape and torture as sex slaves.

It is feared thousands of Yazidi women from Northern Iraq may have suffered torture, rape and other sexual abuse from Islamic State fighters.

Some survivors have even told how they tried to kill each other by strangulation in a bid to avoid suffering at the hands of the IS murderers.

Some young girls in their teens are among the victims after being captured by Islamic State as the group went on an ethnic cleansing rampage.

In a shock report released today and called Escape from hell: Torture, sexual slavery in Islamic State captivity in Iraq - Amnesty International probes the horrifying abuse suffered by possibly thousands of Yezidi women and girls seized by the marauding extremists in Northern Iraq.

One young woman Wafa, 27, who escaped IS told Amnesty how she and her sister attempted to end their lives one night after their captor threatened them with forced marriage.

They tried to strangle themselves with scarves but two girls sleeping in the same room awoke and stopped them. Wafa said: “We tied the scarves around our necks and pulled away from each other as hard as we could, until I fainted … I could not speak for several days after that.”

Many women are being forcibly married, “sold” or given as “gifts” to Islamic State fighters or their supporters.

Often, captives were forced to convert to Islam.

Amnesty International’s Senior Crisis Response Advisor Donatella Rovera, who spoke to more than 40 former captives in northern Iraq, said: “Hundreds of Yazidi women and girls have had their lives shattered by the horrors of sexual violence and sexual slavery in Islamic State captivity.

“Many of those held as sexual slaves are children - girls aged 14, 15 or even younger. Islamic State fighters are using rape as a weapon in attacks amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The women and girls are among thousands of Yazidis from the Sinjar region in north-west Iraq who have been targeted since August in a wave of ethnic cleansing by Islamic State.

Nineteen-year-old Jilan committed suicide while being held captive in Mosul because she feared she would be raped, her brother told Amnesty.

One of the girls, who managed to escape, was held in the same room as Jilan and 20 others, including two girls aged ten and 12. She told Amnesty:

“One day we were given clothes that looked like dance costumes and were told to bathe and wear those clothes.

“Jilan killed herself in the bathroom. She cut her wrists and hanged herself. She was very beautiful; I think she knew she was going to be taken away by a man and that is why she killed herself.”

Several former captives said they had been held in family homes where they lived with their captors’ wives and children.Many Yazidi survivors are also struggling to cope with the loss of dozens of their relatives, murdered or still in captivity.

A 16 year-old girl called Randa, from a village near Mount Sinjar, was abducted with scores of her family members including her heavily-pregnant mother.

Randa was “sold” or given as a “gift” to a man twice her age who raped her.

She recalled: “It is so painful what they did to me and to my family. Islamic State has ruined our lives... what will happen to my family? I don’t know if I will ever see them again.”