More than 100 women and children from the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar are in the hands of  Islamic State fighters and have been taken to Mosul, the country's second largest city that had fallen into IS hands days earlier.

This was the statement of a senior commander of the IS as quoted by CNN.

Like Us on Facebook

The commander told CNN that fighters who overran Sinjar more than a week ago killed a "large number" of men in the town, before abducting more than 100 of the women and children there and taking them to Mosul.

In Mosul, the victims were being "called" to convert to Islam, says the unidentified IS commander.

Earlier, a senior Iraqi official had stated that hundreds of Yazidi women are being held captive by the militants in schools inside Mosul.

Kamil Amin from the Iraq Human Rights Ministry said he received this information from people who had been able to escape from Sinjar before the IS took over the town. Amin said the women were below the age of 35.

Speaking to AP earlier, Amin said he thinks the terrorists by now consider the women "as slaves and they have vicious plans for them."

"We think that these women are going to be used in demeaning ways by those terrorists to satisfy their animalistic urges in a way that contradicts all the human and Islamic values," Amin added.

More than 40,000 Yazidis are still stranded on Mount Sinjar where they fled to when Sinjar and other nearby towns were overrun by IS.  Their plight has prompted the United States to begin humanitarian drops of food and water for the stranded Yazidi, and conduct air strikes against IS positions.

ately, President Barack Obama authorized the deployment of an additional 130 American military advisers to the northern city of Erbil to advise Iraqi forces fighting against the IS. Other countries have also pledged support for the humanitarian effort being conducted by Iraqi and U.S. forces.

TagsIraq, Yazidi, IS