A disturbing report by the United Nations details the horror that Iraqi refugees were attempting to escape when they fled to Europe and other regions.

Kidnappings, enslavement, and sexual violence were detailed in the joint report by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). It also gave specifics about executions by shooting, beheading, bulldozing, burning alive and throwing people off the top of buildings.

“Since January 2014 we have more than 18,000 people killed as a result of the conflict in addition to more than three million people, fled their houses, communities and became internally displaced people.”

An estimated 3,500 people are “currently being held in slavery by ISIL,” according to the report.

It said the group has committed widespread abuses that may “in some instances amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide.”

“Atrocities include ethnic cleansing, murder, kidnapping, rape, sexual violence, wanton destruction of religious and cultural property, destruction of essential infrastructure and the enslavement, sexual enslavement, of thousands [from] minority communities,” said UNAMI director Francesco Motta.

The report reveals those being held are predominantly from the Yezidi community and other ethnic and religious minorities.

The UN has verified reports suggesting that up to nine-hundred children in the Iraqi city of Mosul had been abducted for military and religious training.

Euronews