- Title: IRAQ: Yazidis appeal for help to leave Iraq
- Date: 13th August 2014
- Summary: DOHUK PROVINCE, IRAQ (AUGUST 13, 2014) (REUTERS) YAZIDI PROTESTERS ON ROAD CARRYING LARGE BANNER READING "WE ASK EUROPE TO OPEN ASYLUM FOR DISPLACED YAZIDIS" YOUNG YAZIDI MEN CARRYING BANNERS READING "SAFE YEZIDAN FROM GENOCIDE" AND "HELP US TO EMIGRATE" PROTESTERS CARRYING BANNER READING "SAVE YAZIDIS FROM EXTERMINATION" PROTESTERS HOLDING CARD READING "WE WANT TO LEAVE I
- Embargoed: 28th August 2014 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Iraq
- Country: Iraq
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA6GSHFRTX0TXHDGEQ0P3F8GDAI
- Story Text: Several hundred displaced Yazidis demonstrated in the northern Kurdish city of Duhok on Wednesday (August 13) calling for the world to help them leave Iraq.
Carrying banners in English reading "Safe Yazidis from genocide", around 300 men and women marched in the streets of the city, chanting in Kurdish "We do not want to stay in Iraq".
"Our condition is very terrible. We have been trapped in mountain for seven days without water and food. We want to get out of Iraq and go to Europe," said 17-year old Vian Khaled, a displaced Yazidi girl from Sinjar who took part in the protest.
The Yazidis were just one of the communities fleeing their villages from advancing Islamic State fighters who drove looted armoured vehicles and fired machine guns and raised their black flag over towns across northwest Iraq in recent weeks.
Thousands of women and men, including children and the elderly, made the week-long 15 kilometres journey, trekking across a rigged and rocky mountain range under heat of summer scorching sun crossing to neighbouring Syria and then back into Iraq to reach a safe camp near the Iraq-Syrian borders.
Several thousand Yazidis fled in the last few days by climbing down the west side of the mountain, traversing the dry plain to the Syrian border and travelling north to cross back into Iraq's Kurdish region untouched by Islamic State gunmen.
"We left for the Sinjar Mountain and the Islamic State militants came after us. They killed young people and women, telling us all of you have to convert to Islam," said Khudhair Eid, who fled Sinjar with his family.
Finally reaching their destination, exhausted women and children rested under shade of trees to escape the heat of blistering sun. Some wept for their loved ones who did not survive the harsh journey.
Nayyif Kamal, representative of the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) in the region, said the number of the Yazidis who reached the area over the past two weeks amount to more than 100,000 people.
"We have thousands of casualties who were brought by plane to here. I do not have the exact number, but we have 10-11 casualties daily, let alone those who went missing. Some people told us that they have left their children behind in the mountain and they do not know if they are still alive or they died," said Kamal.
Despite the misery on the mountain, tens of thousands are still taking whatever refuge they can there, aware of the deadly threat the militants present.
Iraq's human rights minister, Mohammed Shiva al-Sudani, said in Baghdad on Sunday (August 10) that the Islamic State fighters, who view the Yazidis as "devil worshippers," killed at least 500 of them in their onslaught last week.
Some victims, including women and children, were buried alive and 300 women were kidnapped as slaves, he said. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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