Gunmen kill seven Yazidis in Iraq
Monday, 15 Dec 2008 12:52
Seven members of a family belonging to the Yazidi religious sect have been killed
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Seven members of a family belonging to the Yazidi religious sect have been killed in northwest Iraq, local police claim.
Officials claim that gunmen assassinated the family members in the Sinjar area of Iraq early on Monday morning.
"A group of armed men entered a house during the night and fired at a Yazidi family, killing three women and four men," police officer, Nashawan Mohammed, told the AFP news agency.
Last August, more than 400 people were killed when suicide bombs targeted members of the ancient religious sect.
Followers of the religion number some 500,000, speaking a dialect of Kurdish and following pre-Islamic traditions.