ISIS reportedly slaughtered 500 members of Iraq’s Yazidi minority during their offensive in northern Iraq in August. A Sunni lawmaker said the victims were buried alive.
August 5, 2014: Displaced families from the minority Yazidi sect, fleeing the violence, walk on the outskirts of Sinjar, west of Mosul. (REUTERS)
Nearly 40,000 members of Iraq’s Yazidi ethnic and religious minority group were trapped on Sinjar Mountain.
Many are still trapped on the mountain.
An old woman with a walker “flees” up a mountain to escape ISIS.
ISIS has taken over two towns on Sinjar mountain on Monday. The minority Yazidi group is at risk of potential genocide at the hands of ISIS.
Reuters reported:
Islamic State militants advanced on Iraq’s Sinjar mountain on Tuesday, tightening a siege of thousands of stranded Yazidis, who called on the United States and its allies to act to avert more bloodshed.
The attack is the latest threat to minority Yazidis, thousands of whom have shot, buried alive or sold into slavery by IS militants, who regard them as devil-worshippers.
The IS militants originally attacked the area around Sinjar, in northwestern Iraq, in August. A renewed assault began at dawn on Monday, when militants driving Humvees and civilian vehicles attacked several Yazidi residential compounds, forcing the Yazidi to retreat up the mountain.
“We are outnumbered and outgunned. We don’t know how long we can hold them off,” said Ali Qasem, a Yazidi volunteer on the mountain.
Qasem said most families had already fled by the time IS arrived, but some could not leave and remained trapped in residential complexes to the east of the mountain.
#URGENT!!!
AIRSTRIKES NEEDED ON ISIS FORCES
SURROUNDING MOUNT SINJAR!
@CENTCOM #AirStrikes4Sinjar
@StateDept pic.twitter.com/zF6uPD2DX9
— ISTANBUL THEMES (@ISTANBUL_THEMES) October 22, 2014