UN team to investigate IS war crimes next year

A UN team authorised to investigate the massacre of Iraq's Yazidi minority and other atrocities by the Islamic State group will begin field work in 2019, the head of the investigation said Tuesday.

The UN Security Council adopted a resolution in September 2017 to bring IS militants responsible for war crimes in Iraq to justice.

Over a year on and the team have still not started their work in uncovering those guilty of the massacres.

So far the team, led by British lawyer Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, has headed to Baghdad but has been focused on administrative and technical details over the past two months, to lay the groundwork for the probe.

The team now ready to work on the investigation that was championed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad and international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney.

"The investigative team now looks forward to continuing preparations in Iraq with a view to commencing investigative activities in early 2019," Ahmad Khan told the council during his first report.

Baghdad initially resisted calls for the UN probe and the head of the investigative team stressed that much effort had been deployed to ensure cooperation from the Iraqi government.

Ahmad Khan told the council that "the realisation of our investigative activities is dependent on securing the cooperation, support and trust of all elements of Iraqi society".

The UN has described the massacre of the Yazidis by IS as possible genocide and UN rights investigators have documented horrific accounts of abuse suffered by women and girls.

Thousands of Yazidi men, women and children were slaughtered by IS, when the militants captured northern and western Iraq in 2014. 

More than 200 mass graves - containing up to 12,000 bodies - have been recently discovered in Iraq, providing evidence of war crimes by IS.

Nadia Murad is among thousands of Yazidi women and girls who were taken hostage and held as sex slaves when IS fighters swept into Iraq's Sinjar region in August 2014.

The investigators will gather evidence on war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide for use in Iraqi courts that will hold trials for IS militants, according to the UN resolution.

Washington announced it will provide $2 million to support the work of the investigative team, known as UNITAD.

After being awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize, Murad said she wanted IS militants to face trial in a courtroom.

"For me, justice doesn't mean killing all of the Daesh members who committed these crimes against us," she said in October, referring to IS by its Arabic acronym.

"Justice for me is taking Daesh members to a court of law and seeing them in court admitting to the crimes they committed against Yazidis and being punished for those crimes specifically," she said in October.