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ISIS jihadists have tried to justify seizing thousands of Yazidi women in northern Iraq and offering them to fighters as sex slaves.

When stories of mass murder and enslavement first emerged in August there were suggestions they might be exaggerated.

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Now, however, researchers who have talked to survivors and imprisoned women on hidden mobile phones believe that up to 5,000 men may have been shot dead and bulldozed into mass graves, and 7,000 women held in detention centres to be offered as slaves.

After capture, the Yazidi women and children were then divided according to the Sharia amongst the fighters of the Islamic State

Moreover, the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham has not only admitted taking the women, but issued a lengthy theological justification.

“After capture, the Yazidi women and children were then divided according to the Sharia amongst the fighters of the Islamic State,” says a new article in their English-language online magazine Dabiq.

When the jihadists attacked areas occupied by Yazidis, the West’s attention focused on tens of thousands of refugees who crowded the barren hills of nearby Mount Sinjar. But thousands more were captured in nearby villages.