Kurdish pershmerga forces prepare escape route for Yazidis trapped on Sinjar

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What a relieved people this group will be when they all finally get down.

Islamic State (Isis)
Kurdish pershmerga forces prepare escape route for Yazidis trapped on Sinjar
Thousands of people who fled after Isis attacks will be led out of mountains after pathway is secured

A member of the Kurdish forces stands in an area damaged by Isis bomb that killed peshmerga fighters pushing towards Sinjar mountain. Photograph: Zana Ahmed/AP
Fazel Hawramy in Zumar

Friday 19 December 2014 12.29 EST

• Kurdish peshmerga forces were on Friday preparing to rescue thousands of Yazidis who have been besieged since August by Islamic State (Isis) militants on Iraq’s Sinjar mountain.

Political leaders hailed a victory over Isis as an offensive launched on Wednesday rapidly opened a corridor to the estimated 7,000 to 10,0000 members of the religious minority and made further gains on Friday.

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Kurdish pershmerga forces prepare escape route for Yazidis trapped on Sinjar World news The Guardian

 

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Evidence of ISIS barbarity...

Iraqi Kurds uncover mass graves in formerly IS-held Sinjar
Nov 15, 2015: Kurdish forces said today they uncovered two mass graves outside Sinjar, a northern Iraqi town near the Syrian border that was ruled by the Islamic State group for more than a year before the extremists were driven out last week.

The first grave uncovered was west of the town's centre near the technical institute and contained 78 elderly women's bodies, the Sinjar director of intelligence, Qasim Samir, told The Associated Press. The second grave was uncovered about 15 kilometres west of Sinjar and contained between 50 and 60 bodies of men, women and children, he said. More precise information from the second grave is unavailable at the moment, Samir explained, because the surrounding area is thought to be rigged with homemade bombs, preventing investigation teams from reaching it. The Islamic State group captured Sinjar during its rampage across northern Iraq in the summer of 2014 and killed and captured thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority, including women forced into sexual slavery.

Kurdish forces backed by US-led airstrikes pushed the extremist group out of the town in a two-day operation last week. "These people (in the mass graves) were shot and buried during the Daesh invasion last year," Samir said, using an Arabic acronym for IS. Sinjar was taken by IS militants in August 2014 following the earlier fall of Mosul. During the same territorial push, IS advanced on Erbil, prompting the beginning of a US-led campaign of airstrikes against the group, first in Iraq and later in Syria. A security official with the Kurdish militia forces known as peshmerga also confirmed the discovery of the mass graves. "This is not a surprise," the official explained, requesting anonymity because he was not authorised to brief the media on the matter. "In other areas that have been taken back, we have found similar mass graves." In the nearby town of Snuny, the Peshmerga uncovered 7 mass graves after retaking the territory earlier this year, the peshmerga official said.

Nawaf Ashur, a resident of Sinjar who was forced to flee with his family in August last year, said the news of the mass graves has jarred the Yazidi community. "Everyone who was missing a family member was hoping that they were still out there, that they are still alive and maybe they'll come back," he said. Thousands of Yezidis remain unaccounted for more than a year after IS took a number of majority Yezidi towns in Iraq's north. While hundreds of Yezidi women and girls have been released or escaped IS captivity, human rights groups estimate thousands still remain in IS custody. "But now with the news of each grave found, we know not all of them will come back," he said. "Some of them are never coming back."

Iraqi Kurds uncover mass graves in formerly IS-held Sinjar - Times of India

 

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Yazidis Still Suffering Years After ISIS Genocide...

Yazidis Still Suffering Years After IS Genocide
April 09, 2018 - Thousands of displaced Yazidis in the Sinjar mountains in Northern Iraq are still suffering and afraid, almost four years after Islamic State attacked Yazidi villages.

"The situation of the Yazidis in Iraq is of great concern. It is an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe with still close to 400,000 internally displaced scattered throughout the provinces of northern Iraq," Lisa Miara, founder of Springs of Hope Foundation, told VOA.
Miara said three-and-a-half years after the Yazidi genocide, some villages are still unreachable and no major effort has been made to enable thousands of Yazidis to restore their lives and businesses. Yazidis, an ethno-religious minority group of about 550,000 people, mostly reside in northern Iraq, in an area also populated by Kurds and Arabs.

Women hold a banner during a demonstration marking the first anniversary of Islamic State's surge on Yazidis of the town of Sinjar, in front of the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland​

In August 2014, the Islamic State attacked the Yazidi-populated Sinjar mountain, killing thousands of men and taking thousands of women and girls as sex slaves. Yazidis consider the attack one of 74 genocides in their history. The massacre against Yazidis was one of the reasons the U.S.-led military operation, under the authority of President Barack Obama, targeted Islamic State in Iraq in August 2014, the first offensive action by the U.S. in Iraq since it withdrew ground troops in 2011. "Targeted airstrikes to protect our American personnel, and a humanitarian effort to help save thousands of Iraqi civilians who are trapped on a mountain without food and water and facing almost certain death," Obama said at the time.

Humanitarian aid

Given the large-scale humanitarian demand among displaced Yazidis, a number of local and global organizations are pleading to remain focused on the plight of the Yazidis. Saad Babir, communication manager at Yazda Organization, told VOA that basic needs such as electricity, water and education are lacking. In addition, more than 70 percent of houses have been destroyed, and many religious temples targeted by IS are in rubble.

Bahzad Farhan Murad points to a list of missing and killed Yazidis in the small office where he collects evidence on Islamic State crimes against Yazidis, in Dohuk, Iraq​

Thousands of Yazidi women kidnapped by IS are still missing. After the defeat of IS in Iraq and Syria, Yazidis feel they have been marginalized and efforts to find the girls — missing since 2014 — have receded. "More than 3,000 women, men and children are still missing. Once IS was gone, no more attention is paid for the victims, no post-IS rehabilitation for the victims, and not just for Yazidis but everyone affected by ISIS," said Babir, using an acronym for the group.

Reconciliation