Islamic State (IS) militants have released 25 Kurdish schoolchildren who were kidnapped by fighters in northern Syria in May, a rights group says.
IS militants abducted more than 150 children, aged 13 and 14, as they were returning to their hometown of Kobane after sitting exams in Aleppo, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.
The 25 were the last of the children to be freed by the jihadists.
Five others were allowed to leave earlier this week before the final group were released on Wednesday, the SOHR said.
“It is true. They were released from (the Syrian town of) Minbij. This is the last part of the releases,” Idris Nassan, deputy foreign minister of Kobane district, said.
He said he did not know why the children had been released, but suggested it could be part of a “propaganda” campaign.
Fifteen children were released in June as a hostage swap to free three IS militants held by Kurdish forces, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Two boys who escaped captivity told local media the IS group was forcing the children to undergo lessons in jihadist ideology, the rights group said.
The children’s release comes on the same day IS fighters executed more than 40 members of a tribe that fought against them in Iraq’s Anbar province, officials said.
The men from the Albu Nimr tribe were killed in Hit, northwest of the capital Baghdad.
A police colonel and a leader from the anti-jihadist Sahwa forces confirmed the killings.
IS has overrun large areas of Anbar, and the killings are likely aimed at discouraging resistance from powerful local tribes, who will be key to any successful bid to retake the province.
Pro-government forces have suffered a string of setbacks in Anbar in recent weeks. That has prompted warnings the province, which stretches from the borders with Jordan and Saudi Arabia to the western approach to Baghdad, could fall entirely.
IS militants have spearheaded an offensive that has overrun much of the country’s Sunni Arab heartland since June.
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