The United Nations has condemned the "horrific" acts of the Islamic State (IS) against civilians in Iraq, including the persecution of hundreds of prisoners, children and women due to religious affiliation.  

Navi Pillay of the UN human rights body said the Islamic State, which has controlled large swathes of Iraq and Syria where they declared a caliphate, has been carrying out "widespread ethnic and religious cleansing" in the areas in controlled.

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"[IS] is systematically targeting men, women and children based on their ethnic, religious or sectarian affiliation," she said in a statement released on Monday.

Based on survivor interviews and reports, Pillay said there have been targeted killings of religious minorities, abductions, slavery and sexual abuse of civilians, which she said constituted crimes against humanity.

Other religious groups who refused to convert to Islam have been killed, while others managed to escape, but remain displaced by the conflict. Their religious communities were also destroyed by Sunni extremists.

Moreover, the high commissioner said the Human Rights Office of the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq has recently verified several reports of a massacre of prisoners in Mosul.

Pillay said at least 670 detainees and prisoners from the Mosul Baduosh Prison were persecuted on June 10 this year, citing accounts of survivors who escaped the mass killings.

The prisoners were part of the about 1,500 prisoners who were loaded onto trucks and transported to a nearby area.

In the area, Sunni prisoners were separated from the others and were later saved from the persecution, while the remaining prisoners were ordered to line up in four rows, forced to kneel down and were ruthlessly killed, Pillay said.

"Such cold-blooded, systematic and intentional killings of civilians, after singling them out for their religious affiliation may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity," Pillay said.

Pillay called on the international community to join force in holding the perpetrators of these "vicious crimes" accountable. He said any individual who committed or helped in these crimes should face legal sanctions.

The Islamic State, an offshoot of al-Qaeda, has been advancing in Iraq and Syria for several months, taking control of several villages and infrastructure. 

In Syria, the extremists took control of an air base in the northeast part of Damascus on Sunday and killed 170 government forces, authorities said.

Last week, the UN urged concerned countries to stop the IS from possible "massacre" of civilians in Iraq, the same threat the forced the United States to carry out air strikes against the militants in Baghdad after it withdrew its troops there in 2011.

The U.S. is also considering possible air strikes against Islamic militants in Syria, though it is still unclear if President Barack Obama is willing to cooperate with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom Obama does not recognize as Syria's official leader. 

TagsIraq, ISIS, United Natons