Isis made two youths hang from a beam by their wrists on Monday after accusing them of eating during daylight hours in the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said.

“Residents of the village of Mayadeen in Deir Ezzor province reported that Isis suspended from a crossbar two boys aged under 18 near the headquarters of the Hissba [jihadi police]”, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

“The children have been suspended by ropes from a pole since noon, and they were still there in the late evening,” he said.

“Apparently, they were caught eating.”

A placard was attached to them: “They broke the fast with no religious justification.”

Throughout the month of Ramadan, which began on Thursday, believers abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and having sex from dawn until sunset.

Isis, which controls swathes of territory across Syria and Iraq where it has created a self-proclaimed caliphate, advocates an extreme view of the application of Islamic law.