Loveday Morris
The Washington Post
8/5/2014
BAGHDAD — Stranded on a barren mountaintop, thousands of minority Iraqis are faced with a bleak choice: descend and risk slaughter at the hands of the encircled Sunni extremists or sit tight and risk dying of thirst.
Humanitarian agencies said Tuesday that between 10,000 and 40,000 civilians remain trapped on Mount Sinjar since being driven out of surrounding villages and the town of Sinjar two days earlier. But the mountain that had looked like a refuge is becoming a graveyard for their children.
Unable to dig deep into the rocky mountainside, displaced families said they have buried young and elderly victims of the harsh conditions in shallow graves, their bodies covered with stones. Iraqi government planes attempted to airdrop bottled water to the mountain on Monday night but reached few of those marooned.
“There are children dying on the mountain, on the roads,” said Marzio Babille, the Iraq representative for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). “There is no water, there is no vegetation, they are completely cut off and surrounded by Islamic State. It’s a disaster, a total disaster.”…
…The dramatic advance of the extremist Sunni fighters has torn the ethnic and religious fabric of the country, with Christians and Shiites also uprooted from cities and towns…
The complete article, with video, is at The Washington Post.
Related: Report: Islamic State Enslaves 400 Yazidi Women…
The Islamic State (IS) allegedly captured more than 400 Yazidi women from Sinjar in northern Iraq Tuesday night, reported pro-Kurdistan news Shafaaq News Wednesday.
“IS distributed the captured women to its fighters in the forests of Mosul and Tal Afar,” reported a correspondent for Kuwaiti news channel Aladalah TV on Wednesday.
Update: The slaughter of the Yazidi (video) Finally the story is being told.
While over 700 journalists were covering the Gaza conflict, few paid attention to the mass slaughter in Iraq of the Yazidi, who are on the verge of a true genocide at the hands of ISIS.
Finally the impending massacre is getting coverage, but it may be too late…
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