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I heard that on the news driving home today...one tiny bit of light in this whole dark mess
I heard that on the news driving home today...one tiny bit of light in this whole dark mess
I agree. You have to cry for these people who are suffering so badly. Such a tiny minority who have had so many of its members murdered.
I heard that on the news driving home today...one tiny bit of light in this whole dark mess
I agree. You have to cry for these people who are suffering so badly. Such a tiny minority who have had so many of its members murdered.
Unfortunately, that is the case for many minorities at the hands of what are essentially uneducated religious radical thugs. Iraq (and Syria) had such a diversity of religious communities at one time...not sure what the future holds now.
I agree. You have to cry for these people who are suffering so badly. Such a tiny minority who have had so many of its members murdered.
Unfortunately, that is the case for many minorities at the hands of what are essentially uneducated religious radical thugs. Iraq (and Syria) had such a diversity of religious communities at one time...not sure what the future holds now.
I think the first thing is that these radicals have to be stopped so that the people can catch their breath and have some peace. Hopefully they will be able in the future to get along with each other regardless of their religious beliefs. I look around in America and see people with so many different beliefs, and yet basically people are able to get along and not harm each other. I wish for the same for the people in the Middle East..
Helicopter Rescue Of Stranded Yazidis
The Huffington Post | By Nick Robins-EarlyEmail
Watch video at:
Heartwrenching Video Captures The Helicopter Rescue Of Stranded Yazidis
Then she pulls up the sleeve to reveal a tattoo — a crude letter N. Her mother had Navine and her brother tattooed with ashes and a nail when they were being held by ISIS. "We all made them when we were first kidnapped," says her mother Halo, sitting near a kerosene heater in their tent on Iraq's Mount Sinjar. That way, if they were separated, mothers believed they might be able to find their children later. In 2014, tens of thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority, facing genocide from ISIS, escaped to the mountain from the town of Sinjar and surrounding villages in northern Iraq. The United States said it entered the war against ISIS partly to protect Yazidis trapped on the mountain with no food and water. Four years later, several thousand of them remain there. Destitute and living in tents, they are still too afraid to come down.
Halo, who asked that only her first name be used, was captured by ISIS along with her children and was eventually taken to the militant group's then stronghold of Raqqa in Syria. Her husband, two elder daughters and another son are still missing. Relatives say they raised $26,000 to fund an underground operation to bring back Halo's surviving children. Navine was 11 when she was taken. For more than two years, while she was held with her mother, younger brother and a baby sister in Raqqa, she pretended to be paralyzed so she wouldn't be taken away as a sex slave. "It was so difficult," she says, sitting on a foam mattress. "Sometimes they were pulling my hair and saying, 'You have to walk. You have to talk.' But I wouldn't answer them. Even when the airstrikes were hitting very close to us, and everyone was running away, I just stayed where I was lying down." After Halo and her children's release from ISIS captivity, they settled in a tent near relatives on Mount Sinjar.
Almost 70 percent of the town of Sinjar was damaged or destroyed in the U.S.-backed fight by Iraqi forces against ISIS. Two years after ISIS was driven out, no one has money to rebuild.
Yazidis are an ancient and secretive religious minority whose faith has long left them as targets for persecution. And for centuries, the 4,800-foot-high Mount Sinjar has served as a refuge for Yazidis fleeing possible genocide. Down at the base of the mountain, entire neighborhoods in the town of Sinjar were destroyed in the U.S.-backed fight against ISIS. Halo's house was one of those left too damaged to live in. Yazidis say they've been forgotten in this remote corner of Iraq. Help from aid organizations arrives only sporadically. There is no running water and no electricity. The nearest schools are too far for many children to walk. Disputes between the Iraqi government and authorities in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in Sinjar have also held up aid. "Sometimes an organization comes and gives each family a box of food. But it doesn't last long — just a few days," says Halo, layered in sweaters against below-freezing winter temperatures, a traditional white scarf covering her hair.
The mountain is dotted with groups of tents — some made from the same pieces of plastic dropped by U.S.-organized airlifts four years ago. The community leader of Sinjar — the mukhtar — says more than 4,000 people are living on the mountain. Almost every family here has had relatives captured by ISIS. Of the more than 6,000 Yazidis kidnapped, almost half are still missing. Many are presumed dead. "Our villages are surrounded by Arabs," says Saeed Ahmed Khalaf, 64, who has lived on the mountain since 2014. "They were ISIS, but now they've shaved their beards and they're still there. How can we go back?" Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Yazidis in Sinjar had strong ties with neighboring Arab tribes. Some Yazidi and Arab children were considered blood brothers — their families obligated to protect each other. Those ties frayed when al-Qaida took root after 2003 and Yazidis became a target. Some Sunni Arab tribes blamed the Yazidis for welcoming the presence of U.S. forces.
When the ISIS rampage in Sinjar began, many of the fighters who came to kill and kidnap Yazidis were people they knew from nearby Arab villages. "We were neighbors — we were eating, drinking together," says Burgess Qassim, who farms and raises sheep. "Almost all the Arabs in this area either joined ISIS or supported ISIS," says Qassim, drinking tea in the mukhtar's home. The attacks have left them permanently afraid of the surrounding villages. "Today my shepherd just heard the bells of an Arab's flock and he pulled the sheep back," says Qassim, 41. "We always say you should keep a distance of at least 5 kilometers [3 miles] from the Arabs." Qassim says two of his cousins were recently shot dead by Arab villagers in an argument over grazing rights. Militia fighters connected to Iraqi security forces said they couldn't arrest the men.
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