The US says so-called Islamic State group has committed genocide against Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims.



"My purpose here today is to assert in my judgment, (ISIS) is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control including Yazidis, Christians and Shiite Muslims," he said, during a news conference at the State Department.

John Kerry said in 2014, ISIS trapped Yazidis killed them, enslaved thousands of Yazidi women and girls "selling them at auction, raping them at will and destroying the communities in which they had lived for countless generations."
Further adding: Executed Christians "solely for their faith" and also "forced Christian women and girls into slavery."

"Without our intervention, it is clear that those people would have been slaughtered," he said.

This is the first time that the United States has declared a genocide since Darfur in 2004.

The House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution labeling the ISIS atrocities against Christian groups in Syria and Iraq "genocide," a term the State Department had been reluctant to use about the attacks and mass murders.

The move, aimed at ramping up pressure on the Obama administration, appears to have worked.