Daesh militants have killed hundreds of people around their stronghold of Mosul, the United Nations says, ABC reports. The UN's human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said that number included 50 deserters and 180 former Iraqi Government employees.
The group also transported 1,600 people from the town of Hammam al-Alil to Tal Afar, possibly for use as human shields against air strikes, and told some they may be taken to Syria. They also took 150 families from Hammam al-Alil to Mosul on Wednesday.
Shamdasani said the militants told residents of Hammam al-Alil they must hand over their children, especially boys above the age of nine, in an apparent recruitment drive for child soldiers. Daesh militants were holding nearly 400 Kurdish, Yazidi and Shia women in Tal Afar, and had possibly killed up to 200 people in Mosul city, she said.
The UN also had reports of air strikes causing civilian deaths including one on Wednesday evening that reportedly killed four women and injured 17 other civilians in the al Qudus neighbourhood in eastern Mosul.
