ISIS 'kills 300 Yazidi captives'

Several hundred Yazidi captives have been killed in Iraq by Islamic State (ISIS) militants west of Mosul, Yazidi and Iraqi officials say.

A statement from the Yazidi Progress Party said 300 captives were killed on Friday in the Tal Afar district near the city.

Iraqi Vice-President Osama al-Nujaifi described the reported deaths as "horrific and barbaric".

Thousands of members of the religious minority group were captured last year.

It is not clear how they were killed, or why this has happened now, says the BBC's Middle East editor Alan Johnston. Yazidis, whose religion includes elements of several faiths, are considered infidels by ISIS.

Thousands fled to the Kurdish-controlled region of northern Iraq after ISIS captured the Yazidi-populated Sinjar district in Nineveh province.

Hundreds of men were killed, while some Yazidi women were held and used as sex slaves.

The Yazidi Progress Party's statement, quoted by the Kurdish Shafaq News website, condemned the latest incident as a "heinous crime" and called on Iraqi forces to free those still held by ISIS.