UN condemns jihadists over attacks on Iraq's Yazidi minority

The U.N. Security Council on Aug. 5 condemned attacks by jihadists in northern Iraq, warning those responsible could face trial for crimes against humanity, amid fears the besieged Yazidi minority could be wiped out.

Iraqi helicopters dropped supplies to thousands of desperate people hiding in mountains from Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL) fighters, as officials warned that the Yazidi in the town of Sinjar, near the Syrian border, risked being massacred or starved into extinction.

A Yazidi lawmaker broke down in tears during a parliament session as she urged the government and the international community to save her community from Islamic militants who have overrun the region.

"Over the past 48 hours, 30,000 families have been besieged in the Sinjar mountains, with no water and no food," said Vian Dakhil. "Seventy children have already died of thirst and 30 elderly people have also died," she said.

Dakhil said 500 Yazidi men had been killed by the militants since they took over Sinjar and surrounding villages on Aug. 3. Their women were enslaved as "war booty", she said. "We are being slaughtered, our entire religion is being wiped off the face of the earth. I am begging you, in the name of humanity."

The U.N. Security Council said ISIL militants posed a threat not only to Iraq and Syria, but to "regional peace, security and stability."       

"Widespread or systematic attacks directed against any civilian populations because of their ethnic background, religion or belief may constitute a crime against humanity, for which those responsible must be held accountable," said a Security Council statement read by British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant.

He singled out the plight of the Yazidi, a closed...