The European Parliament has unanimously passed a resolution recognizing an ISIS genocide against Christians, Êzîdîs and other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria.

The resolution passed on Thursday at a European Parliament plenary session in the French city of Strasbourg demanded that those who intentionally commit atrocities for ethnic or religious reasons be brought to justice for violations against international law, crimes against humanity and genocide.

MEPs called upon the United Nations Security Council to take necessary actions to recognize the ISIS barbaric crimes as a genocide, and to support an appeal to the International Criminal Court for an investigation into the crimes committed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Lars Adaktusson, Swedish member of the European Parliament for the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) Group, who tabled the resolution, said; "It is an historical decision. Elected parliamentarians from 28 countries representing over 500 million inhabitants have sent a clear signal to the Member States, the European Commission and the international community to act and to do so in accordance with the principle of ‘responsibility to protect’.”

Inhumane groups affiliated to the so-called Islamic State, ISIS, committed savage crimes against humanity after their occupation of South Kurdistan's Shengal town on 3 August 2014. Thousands of people were massacred and hundreds of thousands were displaced as a result of the barbaric persecution and atrocity by the ISIS. Thousands of women, mainly young girls, were furthermore taken captive and degraded into slave status, while historical places of worship were also destroyed.