UNITED NATIONS: Senior UN officials issued a dire warning that the atrocious crimes perpetrated by the militant ISIS group risked plunging Iraq into catastrophe as the country reels from bitter sectarian tensions and a growing humanitarian crisis affecting over five million people.

They called upon the international community to increase efforts in aiding Iraq’s full transition towards a stable democracy.

Briefing the UN Security Council on Tuesday, UN envoy for Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, and UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos, delivered an ominous assessment of the on-the-ground situation in Iraq, amid an ongoing offensive perpetrated by ISIS militants and a growing number of internally displaced persons fleeing the brutal violence.

Published in Dawn, November 20th , 2014