Iraq’s Yazidis living in fear on Mount Sinjar
Guley can see her village from Mount Sinjar. It isn't far - a short drive down twisting roads into the dusty plains below - but beyond reach, and for almost two years she's been unable to return. Her family was among the hundreds of thousands who fled as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant […]John Beck writes for Al Jazeera:
Guley can see her village from Mount Sinjar. It isn't far - a short drive down twisting roads into the dusty plains below - but beyond reach, and for almost two years she's been unable to return.
Her family was among the hundreds of thousands who fled as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) swept across northern Iraq's Sinjar region in August 2014 and captured the town of the same name.
Civilians rarely escape the group's notorious cruelty, but as members of the ancient Yazidi religious minority, they had particular reason to fear. ISIL considers the sect heretical "devil worshippers" to be either captured, converted, or executed.
ISIL came in the early hours of August 3, a large force strengthened by weaponry plundered from the Iraqi army, and a reputation as unstoppable killers. They advanced swiftly through the darkness and encountered little resistance.
By morning Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in the area had retreated in disarray, leaving civilians unprotected. In the panic that followed, Guley gathered her five daughters and three sons then made a dash for the mountain's jagged ridge.
