A/HRC/28/18 participate in the armed conflict, in breach of international human rights law,15 international criminal law16 and customary international humanitarian law. 45. The mission investigators interviewed Yezidi children who had escaped ISIL captivity. In August 2014, following the abduction of thousands of Yezidis by ISIL fighters, children aged between 8 and 15 were separated from their mothers and transferred to different locations in Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic, including a school in Tel Afar and a school on the outskirts of Raqqa, Syrian Arab Republic. Children recounted how they had received religious and military training following their forced conversion. Training lasted from 13 days to 3 weeks and included how to load and unload guns, shoot using live bullets and launch small and medium-sized rockets. Boys reported being forced to watch videos of beheadings several times. When they refused, they were severely beaten. A child was told: “this is your initiation into jihad, you have to be strong, because you will do this when you will go to jihad for the Islamic State; you are an Islamic State boy now”. 46. Numerous other incidents reported by reliable sources require further investigation. For instance, residents of Fallujah, Anbar governorate, and Mosul, Ninewa governorate, reported that children in their late teens man checkpoints for ISIL. Other allegations indicate that children as young as 12 or 13 undergo military training with ISIL in Mosul. In areas it controls in Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic, ISIL has allegedly established centres for military and religious training of children in an effort to indoctrinate them and build a new generation of fighters. An ISIL video portrays one such camp near Mosul, referring to the children as the “cubs of the caliphate”. Children are shown exercising and reciting the Holy Koran, while an instructor explains that they are being trained to fight “hate-filled Shia”. It is unclear how many children have received such training and how many are actively engaged in hostilities. 5. Use of prohibited weapons 47. Allegations of the use of chlorine gas by members of ISIL were reported. The use of chlorine gas as a chemical weapon is prohibited in all circumstances. It was alleged that a chemical agent, likely chlorine, was used on 22 September 2014 when ISIL attacked and killed 300 Iraqi soldiers in Anbar. Officials from Balad and Dulu’iya in Salah ad-Din governorate have alleged that ISIL used bombs with chlorine-filled cylinders during clashes in late September 2014. Those allegations require further investigation. 6. Other human rights violations in ISIL-controlled areas 48. The mission documented other serious human rights violations committed by ISIL in areas under its de facto control. They include unfair trials, torture, cruel and inhuman treatment and extrajudicial killings. 49. ISIL-established sharia courts in Mosul allegedly sentence people to such cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment as stoning and amputation. Two men accused of homosexuality were convicted by an ISIL “court” and thrown from the top of a tall building. Four physicians were reportedly executed after refusing to treat ISIL fighters. Thirteen teenage boys were sentenced to death for watching a football match. In January 2015, a document attributed to ISIL showed two men being “crucified” after they were 15 16 The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict states that non-State armed groups should not, “under any circumstances” recruit or use children under 18 years in hostilities. Article 8, paragraph 2 (e) (vii), of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court provides that conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into armed forces or groups or using them to participate actively in hostilities is a war crime. 11