Archive for August 10th, 2014
Testimonies from Mosul, Sinjar, and north Iraq towns…: How Yazidi minorities are coping with the ISIS onslaught?
Posted on: August 10, 2014
Testimonies from Mosul, Sinjar, Zummar: How Yazidi minorities are coping with the ISIS onslaught?
And finally Obama authorises Iraq air strikes against Isis (BY DAN ROBERTS)
‘We need to act, and act now’ says US president, as military carries out aid drops to Iraqi civilians forced to flee by Islamist ISIS group
And Obama dispatched 130 military advisers to Erbil to secure the US consulate and started to bomb by drones and F18 moving artillery regiments of ISIS near the Erbil borders.
For many months all kinds of minorities living in the northern provinces of Iraq, particularly Mosul, have been fleeing the carnage and exactions of the extremist Wahhabi terrorist factions. All kinds of Christian sects, Yazidi, and all Muslim sects that are considered heretics have been persecuted.
And Obama and all the Western governments kept their silence and refused to react to the atrocities and genocides committed in Iraq and in Gaza.
So why Obama decided to act now a little and reluctantly?
Obama said it clearly: The ISIS have crossed the red lines and approached quickly toward the refugee camps near Erbil in Kurdistan Iraq. The US has vast investment in Kurdistan, a self-autonomous province where businesses are mushrooming as during the Far West style of “Faite comme chez vous”.
And Obama has no confidence that the Kurdish Bishmerka militias can stop the advances of ISIS.
Actually, these Kurdish autonomous armies have fled promptly as ISIS advanced toward their positions and left the minorities fend for themselves and refused to provide them with necessary means for fleeing or survival.
This report was sent to us by Ms. Christina Patto, VP Assyrian Aid Society of Iraq.
Here what she wrote: Here is our report and some of our testimony concerning the events happening now in North of Iraq.
It is a tragic situation, nobody can imagine how terrible it is, as much as I write to you and send you reports it will not be enough to describe the suffering of people.
For Zummar and Sinjar: they are under Da’esh control, thousands of Yazidis died in the last two days, they are facing a real genocide. Hundreds have been buried alive in mass graves.
Till yesterday (45) children died of thirst. Some families throw their children from the top of Sinjar mountain in order not to see them die from hunger or thirst, or not to be taken by the terrorists. (1500) men were killed in front of their wives and families, (50) old men died also from thirst and illness.
More than (70) girl and women (including Christians) were taken, raped and being captured and sold. More than (100) families are captured in Tel Afar airport.
Yazidi women who fled the violence in the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar sit Tuesday at a school where they are taking shelter, in the city of Dohuk in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. (Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images)
Report from Iraq: families throwing children from a mountain to keep them from terrorists
August 6, 2014 byThe nightmare that is Iraq gets worse. This was just posted at the CNEWA blog:There is about (50) Christian families in Sinjar. The terrorists were able to control the Syriac church there and cover the Cross with their black banner.
Till now we do not know anything about those Christian families.
For Nineveh Plain: As a reason to the continuous bombing on Telkeif, Deacon (Lujain Hikmat Nano) died, most of the families left their houses and would leave one member of the family in the house, but this tragic led to an exodus from Telkeif. the same thing happened in Shekhan and the surrounded villages (shekhan center, Karanjo, Dashqotan and Ein biqri). Ba’ashiqa: an exodus from there because there was boming and battles near Ba’ashiqa as the terrorists are trying to control that area too.
Ba’ashiqa Monastery is being evacuated from the inhabitants and from IDPs.
Ein Sifni: an exodus of the Yazidi families which forced the christian families to flee too.
Mosul Falls (Dam where most electricity is produced for the province) are now under the control of the terrorist, these fall are about (10-15 Km) from Ein sifni.
Batnaye and Tellisquf: also an exodus because of the threats and bad circumstances they are going through.
Duhok: Our Dorm, the empty houses in the villages, the halls of the churches, school and mosques are full of IDPs and in very bad conditions. I cannot give you the exact number of those families. Also it is very hard to describe their needs in food baskets only, on one can imagine this tragedy, one may cry to see those people in this situation. Concerning Zakho and Center Duhok: Till now they are under the KRG control.
Meantime, additional details from The Washington Post:
Stranded on a barren mountaintop, thousands of minority Iraqis are faced with a bleak choice: descend and risk slaughter at the hands of the encircled Sunni extremists or sit tight and risk dying of thirst.
Humanitarian agencies said Tuesday that between 10,000 and 40,000 civilians remain trapped on Mount Sinjar since being driven out of surrounding villages and the town of Sinjar two days earlier. But the mountain that had looked like a refuge is becoming a graveyard for their children.
Unable to dig deep into the rocky mountainside, displaced families said they have buried young and elderly victims of the harsh conditions in shallow graves, their bodies covered with stones.
Iraqi government planes attempted to airdrop bottled water to the mountain on Monday night but reached few of those marooned. “There are children dying on the mountain, on the roads,” said Marzio Babille, the Iraq representative for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
“There is no water, there is no vegetation, they are completely cut off and surrounded by Islamic State. It’s a disaster, a total disaster.” Most of those who fled Sinjar are from the minority Yazidi sect, which melds parts of ancient Zoroastrianism with Christianity and Islam. They are considered by the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State to be devil worshipers and apostates…. …
“Children have died because of dehydration and lack of food,” Vian Dakheel, a Yazidi parliamentarian from Sinjar, said through tears. “My people are being slaughtered (and women and girls sold in open markets as slaves)” she continued, referring to reports of mass killings of those who had stayed behind.
Note 1: Vian Dakheel, woman deputy of Kurdistan, explained that refugees in the south side of Mount Sinjar has no exit route, are trapped and encircled by ISIS and will certainly die, one way or another. Those who managed to reach the northern side of Mount Sinjar have an opening to flee to neighboring towns and have been receiving airdrop supplies.
Vian recounted a typical testimony: A mother with 6 children had her husband and male sons slaughtered. She fled with the little girls. Two of the youngest died of thirst. A crippled daughter was left to die. The mother is trying to save her remaining daughter by walking, and keep walking to safety and water and food.
Note 2: Israel has a major Mossad headquarter in Erbil since 1980’s and is the agency distributing the funds received from Saudi Arabia to the various extremist Islamic factions in Iraq and Syria.
When Iraq PM Maleki declared that ISIS main headquarter is in Erbil, he meant exactly the close association of Israel and these salafist factions for funding and planing the expansion of this “Islamist State”.
Mantra: “Accept existence of the State of Israel if you want peace”. Of what kind of Israel are you talking?
Posted on: August 10, 2014
Mantra: “Accept existence of the State of Israel if you want peace”. Of what kind of Israel are you talking?
Rania Masri on FB:
I keep hearing this mantra: accept the existence of the State of Israel if you want peace. What does that actually mean?
To accept the State of Israel as a Jewish State? To accept the borders, and which borders? (Israel has no Constitution and never presented to the UN its borders)
To say that we won’t throw the Jewish Israelis into the sea?
People need to speak with greater clarity.
If the reference is to the acceptance of Israel as a Jewish State, then No.
No, because any state that gives greater rights to members of one group (in this case, a religion) over another cannot be democratic.
No, because any state that deems a group of people living within its borders (Palestinian citizens of Israel) and a people living under occupation (Palestinians) as a “demographic threat” cannot be peaceful. So, No.
Just as people rejected the existence of Apartheid South Africa and rejected the “state of the South” in the US as slave-holders, No to the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish State.
If the reference is to acceptance of the borders – and which borders are those? – then, that implies both the existence of a sovereign, contiguous Palestinian State and the return of the Palestinian Refugees to their villages, as of the UN resolution of 193. If so, then yes.
As to throwing the Jewish Israelis into the sea — is that what is meant by rejecting the State of Israel? – then, of course not, I don’t call for that.
However, it is exactly what so many members of the Israeli Knesset, Israeli press, and a growing number of the Israeli public are asking for: ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
Adonis Diaries 