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More than 50 Yazidis and Shiites were killed in northern Iraq by the Islamic State, said Hukar Yaf of the National Union of Iraqi Kurdistan, according to Sputnik.

According to some reports on social media, more than hundred members of the Yazidi minority may have been killed following Friday prayers. The radical Sunnis consider Yazidis and the Shia infidels.

The killing took place in the town of Tal Afar, located approximately 31 miles to the north of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city captured by the Islamic State in June 2014.

The prisoners were killed because they have become a burden for the militants after the United States launched an international campaign to destroy the group, Hukar Yaf told EFE, a Spanish EFE news agency. Earlier, in April, the Islamic State is believed to have released hundreds of elderly Yazidi prisoners for the same reason.