DHAKA: Islamic State militants have freed more than 200 members of the Yazidi religious community they were holding in northern Iraq.

Some 227 people had been released “among them women and children”, said Kurdish commander Westa Rasul, reports the BBC.

He told his Pershmerga forces picked up the group in the northern province of Kirkuk.

IS attacked the Yazidi minority community in Iraq last year, killing and abducting thousands of people.

It released hundreds of other captives in January, including several sick children.

BDST: 2110 HRS, APR 08, 2014
BD/