40,000 Iraqis stranded on mountain as Isis jihadists threaten death [View all]

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40,000 Iraqis stranded on mountain as Isis jihadists threaten death
Members of minority Yazidi sect face slaughter if they go down and dehydration if they stay, while 130,000 fled to Kurdish north

Martin Chulov

Link to video: Iraqis stranded on mountain under threat of death from Isis jihadists


Tens of thousands of members of one of Iraq's oldest minorities have been stranded on a mountain in the country's north-west, facing slaughter at the hands of jihadists surrounding them below if they flee, or death by dehydration if they stay.

UN groups say at least 40,000 members of the Yazidi sect, many of them women and children, have taken refuge in nine locations on Mount Sinjar, a craggy, mile-high ridge identified in local legend as the final resting place of Noah's ark.

At least 130,000 more people, many from the Yazidi stronghold of Sinjar, have fled to Dohuk, in the Kurdish north, or to Irbil, where regional authorities have been struggling since June to deal with one of the biggest and most rapid refugee movements in decades.

Sinjar itself has been all but emptied of its 300,000 residents since jihadists stormed the city late on Saturday, but an estimated 25,000 people remain. "We are being told to convert or to lose our heads," said Khuldoon Atyas, who has stayed behind to guard his family's crops. "There is no one coming to help."

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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/07/40000-iraqis-stranded-mountain-isis-death-threat