UN report details the disturbing extent of Isis atrocities in Syria

A report presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council (OHCHR) on Tuesday reveals the horrifying extent and range of atrocities committed by Isis (who call themselves the Islamic State) in Syria.

Massacres

Presenting a report to OHCHR, Chair of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria, Paulo Pinheiro explained that the group have killed hundreds of captured soldiers in Raqqa, killed hundreds of people from the Al-Sheitat clan in Dayr and killed scores of innocent civilians at the Al-Shaar gas fields in eastern Homs.

Public executions

As well as beheading American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and the British aid worker David Cawthorne Haines, Isis extremists have also executed dozens of Syrian civilians in public squares.

I have run out of words to depict the gravity of the crimes committed inside Syria

• Paulo Pinheiro, Chair of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria

Indoctrination of children

Mr Pinheiro also explained that children were "deliberately exposed to violence and encouraged to attend executions, trained in the use of weaponry and used to participate in hostilities". Children were also made to wander past corpses displayed on crucifixes in public squares.

Oppression of women

The report states that women have been banned from public life, education for girls has been curtailed and early marriage is on the rise.

Women have also been stoned to death after being accused of adultery, or for being seen in public without a male relative or with their heads uncovered.

If you want to know what effect this war has had you must listen to its victims.

• Paulo Pinheiro

Government atrocities

Despite the barbarism of Isis, Mr Pinheiro's report also details the brutality of Bashar Al-Assad's government. The regime remains responsible for the majority of deaths in the country - scores of civilians are killed or maimed on a daily basis with killing from a distance and up close at checkpoints and in interrogation rooms.

Witnesses statements from former prisoners told of torture at the hands of government agents, malnourished prisoners being chained naked, two or four to a bed and deaths as a result of insufficient medical care.

According to the New York Times, Mr Pinheiro had repeatedly urged the UN Security Council to refer the Syrian regime to the International Criminal Court or to push for a political settlement in the country. A failure to do so has "nourished the violence" and allowed Isis to flourish.

More: This is how you can expose Isis using Twitter and Google Earth