The militant Islamic State group has released 93 Syrian Kurds it captured in February as they made their way from northern Syria to neighbouring Iraq, a group monitoring the conflict said on Tuesday.
Islamic State seized around 100 people, accusing them of being members of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) which has opposed the militants, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. It was not immediately clear why they were released.
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The al-Qaeda offshoot which is the target of U.S.-led air strikes in Syria and Iraq, released all but six of the Kurds in Syria on Monday, the Observatory said.
The remaining captives were accused of theft and Islamic State said it would cut off their right hand as a punishment, added the Observatory, which gathers its information from a network of sources.
The Kurds were taken captive as they crossed from areas around the Syrian town of Kobani on the Turkish border on a road towards Iraqi Kurdistan. Islamic State has also fought with Kurds in Iraq.
Ten of thousands of Syrian Kurds took the route east towards Iraq earlier this year to flee Islamic State's advance in Syria.
In recent weeks, Islamic State has intensified its assault on Kobani and surrounding areas.
Around 53 of the Kurds released on Monday made their way into Turkey and the location of the 40 others is unknown, the Observatory said. The militants were still holding around 70 more Kurds captive, it added.
Meanwhile, An international rights group says Islamic State militants tortured and abused Kurdish children captured earlier this year near the northern Syrian town of Kobani.
Human Rights Watch based its conclusions on interviews with several children who were among more than 150 Kurdish boys from Kobani abducted in late May as they were returning home after taking school exams in the city of Aleppo.
It says around 50 of the Kurds escaped, while the rest were released in batches - the last coming on Oct. 29.
Four of the children held by the extremists described frequent beatings with a hose and electric cable.
Human Rights Watch's Fred Abrahams says the evidence of the Islamic State group's abuse of children 'underlines why no one should support their criminal enterprise.'
With files from the Associated Press
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