Baghdad - Seven members of a family of the Yazidi faith were killed by unidentified gunmen who attacked their home in the district of Sinjar, north-west of the northern Mosul city, a police source said on Monday.

The incident took place at a late hour on Sunday night when the gunmen opened fire at the people inside the house, killing three women and four men," the source told Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency.

Sinjar, 120 kilometres northwest of Mosul, is inhabited by Yazidis.

The Yazidi faith is a Kurdish religion with ancient Indo-European roots. Yazidis are primarily Kurdish speaking. Most live in northern Iraq.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are about 800,000 Yazidis all over the world. 550,000 of them live in Iraq.

Sunday's attack was not the first on Yazidis. In November, a married couple were found strangled to death in Mosul.

The worst incident took place in April 2007 when twenty-three Yazidis were slain by gunmen, who apparently targeted them among passengers on a bus in northern Iraq. (dpa)