The Sinjar Mountains rise suddenly from the endless desert of northern Iraq, a ridge of craggy rock some 50 kilometers (30 miles) long, running east to west. Barren and windswept, some 1,400 meters (4,600 feet) high, they make a forbidding sight. But for centuries, they have been the refuge of the desperate and a place of mystical importance.
Last week, the mountains
saw another influx, as tens of thousands of people tried to escape the
rapid advance of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, which now
calls itself the Islamic State. Many of them were Yazidis, fleeing the
town of Sinjar and surrounding villages in convoys of dozens of
vehicles. The lucky ones used smuggling routes to cross into Syria and
back into Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Iraq. The less fortunate
were either seized by ISIS militants or headed into the mountains.
The Yazidi are an ancient
religious sect -- mainly ethnic Kurds -- that worship an angel figure
held by many Muslims to be the devil. ISIS has executed Yazidis who
refuse to convert to its extreme ideology.By Sunday, according to
Iraqi and Kurdish sources, as many as 20,000 had been able to leave the
mountains -- perhaps half of those who had been stranded for nearly a
week. U.N. agencies estimated late last week there were as many as
50,000 people in the mountains.
Kurdish peshmerga forces
appear to have secured an escape route, but a hazardous one with ISIS
militants still roaming the area. According to some accounts, Syrian
Kurds also helped people use parts of northeastern Syria under their
control to reach Kurdish areas of northern Iraq.
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