An Iraqi Kurdish regional official says Kurdish Peshmerga forces have discovered nine mass graves containing members of the Yazidi minority thought to have been executed by Islamic State (IS) militants in the northern town of Sinjar.

Khairy Buzani, the Kurdish regional official in charge of Yezidi affairs, said on December 30 that the graves have been discovered in Sinjar since Peshmerga fighters recaptured the twon from IS militants earlier in December.

He not say how many people were buried in the graves.

Hundreds, possibly thousands, of Yazidis are thought to have been killed when IS militants overran Sinjar in August.

Tens of thousands were either stranded on the nearby Mount Sinjar or fled to Kurdish-held parts of northern Iraq.

Amnesty International says Yazidi women and girls who were abducted, raped, forced into marriage, or sold as slaves to IS fighters could number in the thousands.

Based on reporting by DPA, AP, and Al-Iraqiya TV