Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

[Anthea]

Kurd Press

Yazidi mass grave found in Mosul

A mass grave containing the remains of 35 Ezidi has been found in the northern Iraqi province of Mosul, which was overrun by Islamic State militants in June, Kurdistan Democratic Party officials have said.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces discovered the corpses and identified them as being the remains of Yazidi - a Kurdish ethnic community based primarily in northern Iraq - by their clothes, said Said Memo, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), on Wednesday.

"The mass grave included the bodies of women and children," he said.

The people may have been killed when Islamic State (IS) militants were crossing the region last month, Said added.

Meanwhile, local people said the bodies of inmates seized from Badush prison in July had also been discovered in a mass grave in the al-Humeydat region.

The number of corpses was not disclosed but sources said they were dressed in Badush prison uniforms.

Armed groups linked to the IS have captured large amounts of territory in Iraq in recent months, forcing thousands of Iraqis including Turkmen, Arabs and Yazidis to flee.

IS, which already controls parts of Syria, captured the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in June and then surged across the north of the country.

http://kurdpress.com/En/NSite/FullStory ... 9%09%09%09

[Anthea]

Breitbart

Yazidi MP Vian Dakhil Claims Islamic State Left Due to Stench of Dead Bodies



Iraq’s only Yazidi Member of Parliament (MP), Vian Dakhil, alleged that the Islamic State (ISIS) militants are leaving some of the towns they conquered due to the strong smell from the bodies of those they killed to seize the towns.

“ISIS retreated from several Yazidi villages because the scent of those they killed became unbearable,” she said at the International Peace Meeting. “So far, 5,000 Yazidi Kurdish women have been kidnapped, and they are aged between 13 and 56 years old. Before attending this conference, I saw 35 children who lost every single member of their family. They were all between four and six years old.”

The ISIS terrorists captured Yazidi and Christian towns in northern Iraq as they continue their quest to establish a worldwide Caliphate. Males were killed on the spot, and females became sex slaves. Those who managed escape ran to the mountains, only to face starvation and extreme heat. Kurds and others attempted food drops to the people. Dakhil “survived a helicopter crash while delivering aid to Yazidi refugees.”

“For 10 days, they lived this tragedy on this mountain. 250 children died, newborn babies died, many died eating tree leaves out of hunger,” she said.

A few Yazidis do escape the brutal ISIS prisons. Some of these prisoners, including young girls, have chosen to tell the media about the horrific treatment Yazidis suffered at the hands of ISIS.

A 14-year-old girl, known as “Narin,” told journalist Mohammed A. Salih how she escaped slavery in Fallujah. ISIS presented her as a concubine for an officer, but she refused to be a sex slave. The man beat and punished her, but she escaped and found her way back to the north. Dakhil provided Narin with shelter before she found her family in Shekhan.

A 17-year-old girl told the media that several different men raped her numerous times. The men allowed the sex slaves to call their parents, “but only to describe in detail the sexual abuse they have to endure every single day.”

Dakhil asked the international community to provide asylum for any Yazidis and more action to free the people still in captivity.

“I call upon the international community to make a quick decision in order to free more than 5,000 kidnapped (people), the hundreds of girls who are being raped every day,” she said. “I call on the international authority, the community of human rights and the UN to start an inquiry about the slaughter and massacre the Yazidis have been subjected to.”

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014 ... ead-Bodies

[Anthea]

International Business Times

ISIS Rapes, Tortures, Marries Captured Yazidi Women As Young As 13: State Department Report
By Alessandria Masi

Members of the Islamic State are experienced traffickers of women and children. They rape, torture and marry off the women and children from the towns they’ve seized. Some of these women even commit suicide to avoid a future that would enlace them with the terrorist group.

The group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) abducted between 1,500 and 4,000 women and children from Iraq’s minority Yazidi community, according to a report by the U.S. State Department released Friday. Some of them were taken to Syria and sold to ISIS fighters as “brides.” Others were raped and tortured in Iraq and subsequently brought back to their families.

Kurdish news outlet Rudaw interviewed an anonymous Yazidi mother who said all three of her daughters had been raped by Islamic State fighters and then committed suicide. “My daughters were calling on people to kill them, but no one wanted to do that,” she told Rudaw. “So they jumped from the mountain and ended their bitter life.”

When the Islamic State declared open war on Iraq’s Yazidi minority in August, tens of thousands of Yazidi people were forced to flee to Mount Sinjar. Hundreds of men were executed and hundreds more died from poor living conditions on the mountain. But hundreds of Yazidi women were reportedly abducted and taken to ISIS camps in Syria. Their families have never heard from them again.

One such Yazidi woman spoke to Italian newspaper La Repubblica last week while still in ISIS captivity. She told the news outlet she didn’t know where she was but that she was being held in a large house guarded by armed men with 40 other women, some as young as 13 years old.

“They laugh at us because they think they’re invincible,” she told La Repubblica over the phone. “They think they are supermen. But they are only people without hearts.”

The State Department said Friday that they were “discussing how best to marshal resources to address ISIL's targeting of women and girls and how to make sure those who have been abducted and trafficked are returned to their families.” But it’s unclear what will happen to the many women in ISIS camps in Syria when the U.S. begins their air campaign on the militants’ strongholds.

http://www.ibtimes.com/isis-rapes-tortu ... rt-1687394

[Anthea]

PUK Media

ISIL's Abuse of Women and Girls Must Be Stopped

Beheadings are not the only horrors perpetrated by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIL. Over the past two months, there has been a tragic stream of reports about thousands of women and girls abducted from their families and sold in markets. These violent extremists are attacking their own women and girls.

While captive, these women and children have been tortured, raped, given to ISIL thugs as "brides," or kept as sex slaves. Some have committed suicide to avoid sexual enslavement. Others have been forced to watch as ISIL beat their children to coerce the women into converting to Islam. Some have simply been executed. Hundreds of women and girls have been taken from Iraq to ISIL camps in Syria and never heard from again.

We cannot allow these voices, these lives, to be silenced. All of us must stand up for those who are defenseless.

Reports indicate that ISIL has abducted between 1,500 to 4,000 women and girls, mainly from Iraq's religious community of Yezidis and other minority groups. Girls as young as 12 or 13 have been forced to marry extremists or sold to the highest bidder -- like cattle at an auction. These are young girls, mothers, and sisters facing imminent rape, trafficking, and forced marriage. These are women and girls who pleaded to be killed in airstrikes rather than be brutalized by ISIL.

The stories are heart breaking, and terrifying. One 17-year-old Yezidi girl told an Italian newspaper that she was being kept as a sex slave by ISIL and wished she would be beaten enough to die. A 14-year-old girl was quoted in the Washington Post describing how her brother was killed and she was given to an ISIL leader as a concubine.

Such viciousness against innocents exposes ISIL's blatant rejection of the most basic progress we have made as a community of nations and the universal values that bind civilization.

Americans can be proud that the United States helped when tens of thousands from the Yazidi community fled to Sinjar Mountain with nothing but the clothes on their backs to avoid genocidal attacks from ISIL. Now, as we galvanize an international coalition to work with the newly formed Iraqi government to confront the evil represented by these extremists, we need to ensure ISIL's horrendous treatment of women and girls is front and center.

That's why, when we engage with the Iraqi government, we will be discussing how best to marshal resources to address ISIL's targeting of women and girls and how to make sure those who have been abducted and trafficked are returned to their families.

This is not a task for the Iraqi government alone. The international coalition being formed to combat ISIL must also offer resources and expertise to enable a resolute and inclusive Iraqi government to respond in a comprehensive way to this ISIL threat.

ISIL's Abuse of Women and Girls Must Be Stopped
The de-humanization of women and girls is central to ISIL's campaign of terror, through which it destroys communities, rewards its fighters and feeds its evil. A coalition that fights ISIL must also fight this particularly egregious form of brutality.

This week, new UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein recognized the urgency in this fight and called for "dedicated efforts... to protect religious and ethnic groups, children -- who are at risk of forcible recruitment and sexual violence -- and women, who have been the targets of severe restrictions."

The United States continues to offer humanitarian assistance to help those displaced by ISIL advances in northern Iraq, and we will work with the new Iraqi government and the international community as we respond to the ISIL threat against the women and girls of the region.

As Secretary of State John Kerry and others have said, preventing this kind of brutalization of women and girls in conflict zones preserves our common humanity. We must come together to ensure we end it.

Catherine Russell is the United States ambassador-at-large for global women's issues.

[Anthea]

Bas News

PKK and YPG Pledge to Leave Sinjar Once The Town is Freed
Mewan Dolamari

Yazidi Peshmerga commander on Mount Sinjar, Qassem Shashou said that Islamic State (IS) militants have started to rob Yazidi people’s houses and transfer whatever they loot to Syria.

“Two days ago, IS militants went to the Guhbal area, Sinjar to rob the wheat, but they were brutally shelled by the Peshmerga forces. They ultimately killed an IS Amir named Ammar Hassan as well as four other terrorists,” said Shashou.

Shashou said that recently 52 Yazidi Kurds escaped from IS insurgents to Sinjar Mountain, from where they were transferred to Dohuk province by Peshmerga forces.

“We have asked all Kurds to unite and fight as brothers in defending Sinjar town and they have all agreed. This is the only agreement that exists between us,” added Shashou.

He also claimed that the leaders of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and People’s Protection Units (YPG) have pledged that they will leave Sinjar when the town liberated from IS insurgents.

YPG fighters has been based near Sinjar since IS Militants controlled the area early last month.

http://basnews.com/en/News/Details/PKK- ... reed/34017

[Anthea]

Kurdistan Tribune

PKK Refused Money from Yezidis Fleeing ISIS
By Amy L Beam:

An estimated 25,000 Yezidi refugees fleeing the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) attack of their homeland in Shengal, Iraq, have fled through the mountains to Roboski, Turkey (North Kurdistan). They have been sheltered and fed by Kurds from Roboski north to Diyarbakir and west to Mardin.

I have visited ten Yezidi refugee camps in southeast Turkey (North Kurdistan). In every location, Yezidis gathered around to state that the PKK helped them all the way from Shengal to Turkey. All Yezidis insisted that the PKK refused all money from the Yezidis fleeing the Islamic State attacks.

Several Yezidis in Batman and elsewhere stated that not only did the PKK refuse money, but they also ordered taxi and bus drivers to refund the money they had charged to Yezidis for driving them to the PKK at the mountain north of Zakho, Iraq. The PKK is enforcing a strict policy that all services and aid to Yezidi refugees is to be given free of charge. The PKK provided security, transportation, food, blankets, and guiding from Shengal (also known as Sinjar or Şingale) to the mountain border between Iraq and Turkey.

When Yezidis in the Batman camp heard of the CNNTurk TV report and the BasNews online report that PKK was demanding payment from Yezidis to cross the border into Turkey at Roboski, a huge chorus of protest rose up in the crowd of Yezidis who had gathered to tell their stories.

On Sept. 7, 2014, BasNews reported under the headline “PKK Forces Yazidis to Pay Money to Smuggle Them Into Syria or Turkey”:

“. . . fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have put a price of between $50 and $200 to smuggle Yazidis into Turkey or Syria. Sharwan Ibrahim, a Yazidi refugee from Sinjar, told BasNews that PKK fighters force refugees to pay $50 – 200 to smuggle them into Syrian Kurdistan or Turkey.”

From among more than 1000 Yezidis that this writer spoke with in 10 different locations in Turkey, not one person reported paying the PKK or hearing of anyone else who had paid the PKK. Every Yezidi stated unequivocally that without the PKK to protect them, feed them, and guide them to Turkey, they would not have made it to safety.

Link to Article and Selection of Photos:

http://kurdistantribune.com/2014/pkk-re ... eing-isis/

[Anthea]

Breitbart

ISIS Using Yazidis as Human Shields Against U.S. Airstrikes
by Tera Dahl

Reports from eyewitnesses here in Northern Iraq spoke to Breitbart News about how the terrorist group the Islamic State is using Yazidi hostages as human shields to protect themselves against U.S. airstrikes – using the same strategy as Hamas in Gaza.

“ISIS sells the women as slave girls, the way they are doing it, they are using the women as human shields to protect them from U.S. airstrikes,” said Hameed, a Yazidi refugee who is seeking safe haven in Northern Iraq. He escaped his village when ISIS invaded and fled to Sinjar Mountain with his family where he stayed for 7 days with limited food and water. ISIS is still holding four of his family members hostage.

Hameed said that his family members that are still being held hostage spoke to him on the phone saying that “ISIS are using the hostages as human shields to protect themselves from the U.S. airstrikes.” He said that he has spoken with members of ISIS as well on the phone and they told him that they aren’t going to hurt his family members, but the reason they are keeping them hostage is to protect themselves from U.S. airstrikes.

Hameed believes that ISIS will kill his family members eventually. “They enjoy the scene of blood and are happy about it," he explains. "They dance over these bodies.”

“We didn’t take any food with us because we weren’t expecting these kinds of attacks. I was asleep and heard some sounds of gunfire, my mom woke me up and I was very scared. People are running from their houses, they are trying to get whatever they can and are fleeing to the mountain,” he said.

“ISIS began searching for individuals who stayed in the village, regardless if they found anyone, elder or in a wheelchair, they would take them as slaves and sell them out in the market place or somewhere else.”

Hameed said that after ISIS kidnapped the people, they would blow up headquarters and buildings that belong to Kurdistan parties. “They burn alcohol stores. Whoever stayed there was being ripped out from his house, they took the people to the center and will probably execute them.”

He said that even if people do nothing wrong and don’t pick up a weapon, they will still be killed, “they will still kill you and treat you like an infidel.” He added that he spoke with a neighbor from his village on that phone who is very wealthy who is helping by buying some of the women that ISIS is selling as slaves so he can return them to their families.

Hameed heard that ISIS was retreating from a village where some of the first clashes took place between the native citizens and ISIS, not because of fighting, but due to the smell from the dead bodies. “The reason is because they can’t bear the environment because of the smell, even traffic is stopped in areas because we have this large amount of dead bodies." This echoes reports from Iraqi Member of Parliament Vian Dakhil, the legislature's only Yazidi representative, who reported that Islamic State jihadists had been overwhelmed by the scent of their own killings.

“We can’t go back home because we know what will happen to us if we go back home. We will be killed,” he said.

This is one of many horrific stories from the Yazidi refugees. There are hundreds of thousands of refugees in Northern Iraq due to the advancement of ISIS. Driving down the road, you will see refugees using bridges and abandoned buildings for shelter. Schools in Dohuk were supposed to start classes this last week, but have been postponed due to refugees using the schools for shelters. There are over 550,000 IDP’s (internal displaced people) in Dohuk alone. There are 95,000 families and they expect 120,000 families by winter.

A group of Americans from various Christian organizations visited refugees at the Yazidi camp in Dohuk this last week. They went inside the tents with the Yazidi people and listened to their stories of escaping from Mt. Sinjar. The refugees spoke about the feeling of loss and abandonment. “Nobody is paying attention to us, nobody cares,” said one refugee.

Abby Abildness, with Healing Tree International in Pennsylvania, was part of this group. She responded to the refugees saying that “God has not forgotten you and there are people around the world praying and wanting to help.”

One refugee family spoke about how their brother had been wounded when the Islamic State invaded; they believed he was executed. The refugees struggle with PTSD and are in dire need for medical and psychological help. Many of the children are sick and have died while living in the camps. There is fear of disease outbreaks throughout the camps. They are also concerned about winter coming. Many of the refugees are still wearing the same clothing from when they escaped Mt. Sinjar.

A medical official stated that ISIS has abused and kidnapped over 2,000 women and children -- many have been killed. He said that 450 Yazidi men were shot in one hour. “How can you think that those people who face all those troubles can go back? They can’t go back,” he said. “We know that America is trying to help but we hope America can do more…the needs of the refugees is beyond our capabilities,” he said.

The KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) employees have not been paid a salary for 3 months due to the KRG budget being cut off by the Baghdad central government. The KRG budget has been cut off by Baghdad due to various disagreements on oil and gas sales.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014 ... Airstrikes

[Anthea]

Rudaw

In Israel, Yezidi Activists Warn Killing Won’t Stop

The international community needs to put soldiers on the ground in Iraq to counter the rise of Islamic State extremists who are certain to target Yezidi minorities again, Yezidi activists said.

Speaking at a conference in Tel Aviv on the plight of the Yezidis, community leaders and Israelis drew comparisons between the persecution of Yezidis by Islamic State (IS) and the Holocaust.

The keynote speakers from the Yezidi community at the Sept. 10 event, which drew 150 people, included Mirza Dinnayni, a former adviser to the Iraqi President on Minority Affairs who travelled to Israel to participate in the conference despite being injured in a helicopter crash while on an aid mission to Mount Shingal in August. He now works as the coordinator for the Yezidi community in Europe, which along with the US is arming Kurds. France and the US are conducting air strikes on IS positions in northern Iraq.

However, Dinnayni believes air campaign alone will not stop IS in the long-term

“Without international troops on the ground, we will pay the bloody price,” he said.

Yezidi activists said there have been 73 genocidal campaigns against the Yezidis, the latest being the August massacre, kidnapping and rape of thousands by IS extremists, who consider Yezidis apostates.

Elias Kasem, a spokesperson from the American Yezidi Union, warned that the persecution will not end.

“If history can teach us one thing, it’s that this ongoing genocides against the Yezidis will not stop,” he said. “This being the 73rd time, there will be a 74th and a 75th in the future because of where the Yezidis live. Yezidis cannot survive in an area that is surrounded by Islamic fanatics who take joy in killing them.”

At the conference, he recounted the story of a mother of two children trapped on Mount Shingal “One was disabled, the other was not. When they had to flee their homes, she had to choose to take only one of her children with her. Is this the kind of decision a mother should have to make in the 21st century?” Kasem told the participants.

The conference included several recorded videos of victim testimonies that shed light on the difficult conditions for refugees who were facing hunger, death and severe trauma after having been trapped on Mount Shingal. The videos showed everyday life in refugee camps and the struggles faced by the tens of thousands displaced by the extremists’ assault on their community.

Kasem, a 30-year-old Yezidi from Iraq, was displaced along with his family during the first Gulf war in 1991 and settled in the United Sates.

“As an American citizen, I am ashamed at the Obama administration, which has not come to the aid of my people; it was the Kurdish forces that lifted the siege. We teach our children the lesson that we should not allow history to repeat itself. However, I think that we can all agree that in light of these recent massacres, we have failed to do so yet again.” Kasem said.

While Kasem said there are many similarities between the Holocaust and the Yezidi genocides, he maintained that in the current situation “Yezidi women are taken as war trophies … and Hitler did not kill Jews because he was too devoted to any religion like ISIS is to Islamic extremism ideology.”

The conference was sponsored by a coalition of Israeli NGOs including Dror Israel, the Combat Genocide Association, and The Jerusalem Center for Genocide Prevention, BlueWhite Human Rights, Israel for Yezidis and Machanot Haolim. Israeli groups including Kurdish-Israeli activists have tried to raise awareness about the Yezidi massacre, with the Combat Genocide Association and the Jerusalem Centre for Genocide Prevention creating the Israeli Committee for the Help of the Yezidi People.

Yaniv Carmel from the Dror Israel movement said, “I think that there is a reason that we, the Jewish people, can relate ⎯ maybe better than other people ⎯ to the Yezidi tragedy. While we were being murdered in Europe the world turned a blind eye although they knew it was happening, as evidence revealed after the Second World War show. So as Jews we have a certain obligation not to sit idly by while our fellow human beings are butchered brutally. We have a moral obligation to cry out to the world and say, ‘We have to stop this genocide.’”

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/200920141

[Anthea]

BBC News Middle East

Islamic State crisis: Yazidi anger at Iraq's forgotten people
By Yolande Knell

When tens of thousands of members of Iraq's Yazidi minority fled from Islamic State (IS) early last month, many were stranded on the barren slopes of Mount Sinjar.

They became the focus of international attention. But now they say the world has forgotten their plight.

Across the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, displaced Yazidi families can be seen living in makeshift camps and half-finished buildings, even under bridges.

Meanwhile, experts say some 4,500 individuals - including about 3,000 women and children - remain in IS hands.

The young women and girls are being treated as spoils of war and trafficked around the region. Only a few have managed to escape.

Adla has just been reunited with her husband at a camp in the town of Zakho. She was taken with others from her village and held for 38 days.

"At first I was taken to a big house in Mosul. It was full of women," says Adla, trembling. "They locked all the windows and doors and surrounded it with guards."

"Every day or two, men would come and make us take off our headscarves so they could choose which of us they wanted. Women were dragged out of the house by their hair."


Adla was taken from her village by IS militants and held for 38 days until she eventually fled to safety

As Adla was moved from place to place, she saw her friends being violently beaten and raped. One was forced to leave with her little son at gunpoint.

She says that for a long time the militants left her alone because she was pregnant, but later she became more worried for her safety.

"One day a lot of men came to take girls and we decided we must run away. Even if they captured and killed us, we'd prefer to be dead than to stay."

Minority expert Khidher Domle has collected information on the locations where Yazidis are being held in parts of Iraq now under IS control.

Some are in actual prisons, others in a former palace and a wedding hall.

He is able to talk to several captive women who have mobile phones.

Vulnerable targets

"The situation is unbelievable, especially in Mosul and Tal Afar," he says.

"The international community isn't investigating. They don't believe such a large number of women have been kidnapped by IS."

He says Yazidis are being specifically targeted because IS wants strategic control of their land but also because of their ancient beliefs, which the Sunni Muslim extremists consider heretical.

"They don't believe Yazidis are religious; they don't believe Yazidis have rights. They want to tell them they have no place in the Islamic State," Mr Domle says.

"They think they can kick the Yazidis out, especially from the Sinjar area, and if the Yazidi women don't convert they can use them as slaves, as gifts of war."

At a school where she is taking shelter, I meet an unmarried woman in her early twenties, who agrees to tell me her horrific story of being held and tortured by IS.

"The beat us with cables, starved us and made us wash our faces with petrol," she says.

"They tried to take one of my friends and she slit her wrists. Two others hanged themselves from the ceiling fans."


Displaced Yazidi families live in fear that Islamic State fighters will attack their makeshift homes

She got away during air strikes targeting IS and walked for three days to find safety. Now she worries for those she left behind.

"They will sell girls to whoever wants to buy them - girls aged nine and over," she says. "Some men bought two or three, even four or five at once. It's shameful."

And that reminder is too much for the woman's aunt. She has two small daughters who are missing. She begins to slap her cheeks and wail.

"It's a disaster, a disaster," she cries. "They took all our girls. It's all we care about. The world must help us."

Calls for intervention

At her house in Irbil, Iraq's only Yazidi parliamentarian, Vian Dakheel, now has more than 30 displaced relatives living with her.

She uses crutches after she was badly injured in a helicopter crash while trying to deliver aid to the mountain last month.

Ms Dakheel believes Western military intervention to combat IS could help free the Yazidi prisoners.

"Publicity would also help just like when Mrs Obama got involved in trying to rescue the schoolgirls captured by Boko Haram in Nigeria," she adds.

"We're a minority here and there's no strong lobby to support us. We ask for support from those governments that care about human rights and humanity."

For the families of the missing women and girls, time is running out. They fear if they are not found soon, they might never see them again.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29333327

[Anthea]

Obama Went to War to Save Them, But They Can’t Get U.S. Visas

The U.S. started bombing ISIS to save the Yazidis, many of whom served the U.S. Army during the American occupation as interpreters. What happens to them now?

The 28-yearold Yazidi from Sinjar, who used to be called Tommy by the American soldiers he worked with, was not in his hometown of Tel Kisib on August 3. That was the day the group that calls itself “Islamic State” attacked. His father, four brothers, eight uncles and dozens of nephews and cousins were there. They tried to escape, but ISIS caught up with them in the town of Qana, lined them up and shot them.

Tommy’s 24-year-old brother Mohsin, a university student studying English, survived the massacre, only grazed by bullets in the head and arm, and managed to get away. But ISIS abducted Moshin’s pregnant wife, along with Tommy’s five sisters, and dozens of aunts, cousins, nieces and male relatives under the age of 12.

Mohsin begged the militants to spare his 13-year-old brother, but was told all boys over 12 were to be killed because they were too old to be indoctrinated by their “Islamist” ideology. He remembers when his uncle, who could not stand, was “held up by two Da'esh members and shot by a third.” (Da'esh is the Arabic acronym for ISIS. The family names of the people in this story have been omitted because of their worries about security.)

Tommy , Mohsin and their few remaining family members are now living in a school in Dohuk, having taken refuge in the Kurdish north of Iraq like thousands of others displaced from the city of Sinjar and the villages around it.

Many, having lost everything, hope to begin their lives anew some place far from Iraq. But Tommy is not just seeking asylum anywhere. He’s looking to go to the United States, because the U.S. Congress said he could, if only the window open to him doesn’t close in the next few days.

Tommy worked with American troops for two years starting in 2005. Indeed, many Yazidis from Sinjar worked for the army as translators from 2005 through 2010.

Tommy first started teaching himself English when the U.S. Army came to Sinjar in 2003 in order to get a job with them. The first time he took the test, he was rejected. But he continued to study English every day and eventually was accepted as an interpreter. During his two years of service with the U.S. military he worked in several dangerous parts of the war zone, including Diyala in what was known as the Sunni “triangle of death."

Another one of Tommy’s older brothers who also worked as an interpreter with the American forces was killed in a car bombing in June 2010, targeted precisely “because he worked for the U.S,” says Tommy. His brother’s son was one of those lined up and shot by ISIS on August 3 in Qana.

Between al Qaeda and ISIS, nearly all of Tommy’s family has been killed.

Now Tommy is hoping for a new home in the United States because American laws on the books should give him that chance. He is one of hundreds of Yazidis from Sinjar eligible for the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) that was created in 2008 under the National Defense Authorization Act for translators and interpreters who were employed by the U.S. Government in Iraq, including those who worked with the U.S. Armed Forces for a year or more. The law was passed because many Iraqis and their families faced torture, rape and murder due to their affiliation with the U.S. government.

But Tommy, like many others, has been unable to obtain the documentation required by the State Department for the visa.

Even before the ISIS onslaught, only about 20 percent, or 5,812, of the available 25,000 visas the legislation allocated had been issued when the SIV program first ended in December 2013. Over 1,000 Iraqis were backlogged – waiting for months or even years, stuck in various stages of the process. Last year the program was extended with the new deadline looming at the end of this month. In the past eight months 282 more visas have been issued.

The List Project to Resettle Iraqis is a nonprofit organization that enlisted top U.S. law firms to provide pro bono representation to Iraqis who were eligible for the SIV program. It was founded by Kirk Johnson who worked for USAID in Iraq and found that many Iraqis faced death threats, but the U.S. did not have anything in place to protect them.

Despite the heroic efforts of the List Project, the SIV program has moved too slowly, plagued by bureaucratic delays, and hence has failed to help many of those who were at imminent risk of being targeted for their U.S. affiliation before – and now more than ever.

Hank, Frank and Tank, three brothers from Khanasor, a town north of Mount Sinjar, worked for the U.S. army for a combined six years, going on dangerous missions in Mosul, Anbar and Tel Afar. “Ani Amir Amreeka fi Sinjar,” said their father proudly, laughing, which translates as, “I am the prince of America in Sinjar.”

This was a dangerous title considering that locals called their town “Khanasor aain al Qaeda,” which means “Khanasor is the eye of al Qaeda,” because of the large number of locals who worked as interpreters for American forces.

In addition to the three brothers, eight extended members of the family worked for the U.S. forces. In Khanasor alone, hundreds worked for the troops, and Hank estimates that over one thousand interpreters could be found in all of Sinjar.

Khanasor had a disproportionately high number of English speakers thanks to Jassim, an exceptional and revered local English teacher. Khanasor’s population is also more educated than other towns and villages in Sinjar, because it is larger at 35,000 and more urbanized. In smaller more rural towns children stay home from school to help tend the fields and raise animals. “We are the intellectual capital of Sinjar,” said Frank.

While Al Qaeda never threatened Khanasor, the town is now controlled by and is the main base of ISIS on the north side of the mountain.

Frank remembers many close calls from his service with the Americans, especially when he was in Tel Afar, where Al Qaeda’s presence made it one of the most dangerous cities in all of Iraq. One day when he and an American officer were interviewing a local man, a gunman shot at them from down the street. Hank was not hit but the U.S. soldier was shot multiple times in his legs. Hank pulled him out of the street to safety.

Hank and his brothers also stayed when many left. When the situation was very bad in 2005, many translators would go on leave and simply not come back, because working for the U.S. put them in grave danger. Hank recalls there were only about 12 translators for 3,000 troops, and they often worked for 80 days straight because they were not allowed to take breaks.

Hank’s cousin was by a suicide bomber while working with Special Forces in Hatimiya, on the south side of the mountain in 2008. A suicide bomber also killed Hassan, from Khanasor, at the Rabiaa border crossing with Syria.

Interpreters were in constant danger off the job as well. Ahmed, like many, had a fake ID that said he was Muslim. Another Yazidi from Sebaya was killed by al Qaeda for working with the U.S. when he went to Mosul to apply for a passport.

Some Yezidis from Sinjar, including several members of the Hank’s family, have already immigrated to the United States under the SIV program.

But Hank and Tommy are among dozens with open SIV cases because they have been unable to obtain all of the documents required by the State Department. The one that is posing the greatest challenge is the “employment verification” or “HR” letter. The letter must come from the HR department of the contracting firms that hired the applicant, not an army supervisor. In the cases of Yazidis from Sinjar, the contracting firm is L-3, which later became GLS or Global Linguistic Solutions.

Working through local contacts, we have identified 11 open SIV cases from Sinjar. Of these eleven, four have been unable to obtain the HR letter from L-3 and GLS. From these statistics it can be assumed that there are many other Iraqis with a similar problem.

One problem is that these firms had little if any relationship with local Iraqi hires beyond recruiting them. Four of the people in question remember only the first names of L-3 employees who no longer have valid company email addresses. In addition, the contractors are no longer working in Iraq, and do not have old employment files of local hires.

Iraqis who send desperate emails asking military contractors for HR letters get this form-letter response:

Full Article:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... visas.html

[Anthea]

Rudaw

Yezidi Children Cope Without Parents Two Months After ISIS Onslaught
By Judit Neurink

DUHOK, Kurdistan Region - Hundreds of Yezidi children have been orphaned or have lost all trace of their parents since they fled Islamic State fighters who swept into their homeland two months ago.

Many families were split up as civilians sought the relative sanctuary of Mount Shingal when ISIS attacked the town of Shingal and its surroundings, the main centre of the Yezidis, a Kurdish minority that the jihadists consider to be infidels.

Zeit Rachid, 18, is now is all alone in the world since losing sight of his mother, father, two brothers and a sister when he headed for the mountain in early August, part of an exodus that helped spur calls for international intervention to prevent a genocide.

“They told me to run. We had to escape! In that catastrophe I lost them. I really don’t know how it happened,” said Zeit, who has now found refuge with distant relatives with whom he shares a room in an unfinished house in the Yezidi village of Sharya, outside the Kurdish city Duhok.

On the mountaintop, where he was stranded with thousands of others for over a week, he searched fruitlessly for his family. A month ago he learned that they were still alive, but he has had no news since. “It would be the biggest present ever to have them back alive,” he said, “but I am somehow sure they are dead.”

The escape from Shingal means Zeit has been unable to undergo scheduled treatment for kidney stones in his hometown. “All had been arranged in Shingal for me to have an operation,” he said. “Here they can only give me pain killers.”

Some 25.000 Yezidi’s from the Shingal area have found refuge in Sharya, among them 28 children known to have been orphaned. As no official registration has been conducted, the numbers of internally displaced Yezidis throughout Iraqi Kurdistan can only be estimated, and is put at between a quarter and half a million. That puts the potential number of orphans in the hundreds.

Gulestan, 19, and her sister Dalar, 11, found refuge with their uncle Samir in another skeleton of a house in Sharya. Just before the ISIS attack, her father had left to visit a village in which, she later heard, many men had been killed there by ISIS. She became separated from her mother on the way up to Mount Shingal.

“Daash [ISIS] was shooting at us, and we had to run to save our lives. My mother could not. She sent us up and went back down herself,” she recounts with pain in her eyes. Uncle Samir adds: “She was too fat, weighing at least 150 kilos.”

He thinks she was kidnapped, as the village she was heading for was later taken over by the jihadists. As she has not contacted the family in any way, Gulestan fears she may not have survived.

In the cultural centre of Sharya, lawyer Jalal Lazgeen is in charge of the informal registration of the internally displaced living here. He goes through the written lists to find the orphans, a task that is hampered by the fact that in Iraq children who only lost their fathers are also considered to be orphans.

“With some kids the parents are known to have died,” he said, consulting the list, “with others they are missing.” For some, contact has been made by the missing parent, but often nothing is known, leaving children between hope and fear for what has happened to their loved ones.

Such is the case of Salam, a nine-year-old who looked after his two small sisters and brother when they fled to the mountain with his uncle Selou. The boy put the smallest one on his shoulders and held the others tightly by the hand.

Salam’s mother had sent them to his uncle, because she was caring for their dying grandmother. An older sister and baby were with her, and they could not flee with the rest. “We spent seven days and nights on the mountain, and I could not find them,” Salam says sadly.

Earlier, his father was picked up by ISIS in Mosul, he recounts quietly. He thinks his mother is there too. “They are with daash, with those bad people.”

When his uncle tried to phone his mother, someone answered who had found the phone in the street. “I miss her terribly. I will do anything to see her again,” he says.

ISIS has killed many men in the villages and towns of the Shingal region. Exact numbers are not known because most of the area is still under the militants’ control. An estimated 5,000 men, women and children have been kidnapped, and then distributed among various prisons, buildings and houses.

Most of the orphans among the refugees are looked after by uncles, aunts and grandparents. Yezidi aid workers are developing a plan to offer special care for the most vulnerable children, who have lost all their family. They want to set up a special centre, where the kids will also be offered schooling.

http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/01102014

[Anthea]

The Independent

Plea for West to help more than 1,000 kidnapped Yazidi women forced into 'sex trade'

The world has forgotten their plight after the rescue from Mount Sinjar

Yazidis in Iraq have made an emotional plea for the international community to help find more than 1,000 women and children kidnapped by Isis.

Those willing to convert to Islam are married off to militants but those maintaining their faith are trafficked as sex slaves, abused and imprisoned.

Thousands of people from the religious minority, who are considered heretics by the Sunni extremist group, were driven from their homes by the Isis advance in August.

The US started its intervention in the Iraq conflict as part of a humanitarian mission to rescue the families trapped without food and water on Mount Sinjar but not all were saved.

More than 1,000 Yazidi women had already been captured by Isis as Kurdish soldiers advanced on Mosul and hundreds more are believed to have been abducted as part of the group’s mission to eradicate other religions in its Sunni-dominated Islamic "caliphate".

Vian Dakheel, Iraq’s only Yazidi parliamentarian, is sheltering more than 30 displaced relatives at her home in Irbil.

[Anthea]

Dr Widad Akrawi's appeal

I WILL FOLLOW ANY1

N BEG EVERY1

TO BE THE HERO

N HELP RESCUE THE ENSLAVED

YAZIDI GIRLS & WOMEN

#SaveYazidis #DrWidad☮

[srflaxu40]

Can someone help me get in contact with a reliable resource to go to Turkey and cross into Syria to join the YPG and fight IS?

I am a Marine combat veteran of Iraq (2004), American and Christian who wants to stop IS from massacring Muslims and Christians in Syria and Iraq whatever way possible.

If so, could you send me a message?

[Anthea]

Can someone help me get in contact with a reliable resource to go to Turkey and cross into Syria to join the YPG and fight IS?

I am a Marine combat veteran of Iraq (2004), American and Christian who wants to stop IS from massacring Muslims and Christians in Syria and Iraq whatever way possible.

If so, could you send me a message?

Thank you for your kind offer

I hope that you manage to find a way into Syria because your experience would be of great value to the Kurds there

At the moment even Kurds from Kobani with all their local knowledge are unable to cross back into Syria to help fellow Kurds fighting in their town

The fighting around Aleppo is also severe - though not much information is coming out of that area

GOOD LUCK