ISIL shot dead a disabled girl and five others who were lagging behind a group being forcibly marched out of their village south of Mosul, the UN said yesterday (Tuesday).
The jidhaists reportedly fired on the group as it was moving slowly due to the girl's disability. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) fighters are believed to have carried out execution-style killings of dozens of Iraqi civilians and former police officers as the group is forced to retreat from territory around Mosul.
The bodies of 15 civilians were discovered dumped in a river in the village of Safina, about 30 miles south of Mosul, according to a UN report issued yesterday. The bodies were apparently placed in plain sight in an attempt to spread fear among other villagers.
In the same village, Isil reportedly tied six civilians to a vehicle by their hands and dragged them around, apparently because they were related to a tribal leader fighting alongside Iraqi government forces. Their fates are unknown.
Iraqi security forces found another 70 bodies riddled with bullet wounds on Oct 20 in the nearby village of Tuloul Naser, and 50 police officers who had been held hostage by Isil were reportedly executed in a building outside Mosul on Sunday.
The reported incidents, which the UN cautions should be treated as "preliminary and not definitive", strengthen fears Isil might use civilians as human shields as they retreat from Mosul.
The coalition offensive to retake the city and surrounding villages is now in its second week and the situation on the ground has become increasingly unstable.
"We fear we are just at the beginning," said Rupert Colville, of the UN's human rights organisation.
"These villages are 35-40km (22-25 miles) outside Mosul. The closer you get to the city, the worse it could get.
"We've had reports Isil are moving people, and we don't know where, but with their history of barbarism, you fear it's somewhere with strategic value for them." Isil has suggested on social media that it will temporarily retreat into the deserts of Anbar province, where it plans to rebuild and inflict further atrocities on Iraqis.
Scores of Kurdish peshmerga and Iraqi security forces have been killed and injured during the offensive, and one US serviceman was killed last week. Isil has studded the roads and hills around Mosul, its largest stronghold in Iraq, with IEDs and dispatched snipers as the coalition approaches.