The siege on Iraq’s Mt. Sinjar may
have broken. But ISIS has taken hundreds, if not thousands, of Iraq’s
ethnic minorities prisoner. They’re begging for help before it’s too
late.
The
Pentagon says the U.S. military is now unlikely to attempt a rescue
mission for the Yazidi minorities trapped on Iraq’s Sinjar Mountain,
because so few are left. One reason why: ISIS has taken hundreds, if not
thousands, of Yazidis prisoner, and threatened them with slavery and
rape. But a few of the prisoners have smuggled in cellphones and are
reaching out—pleading for help.
In desperate phone calls to relatives in Iraq and in the U.S.,
they’re begging for rescue from the prisons, schools or mosques across
northern Iraq, where they are being held by ISIS militants.
They all tell a similar tale of horror: families fleeing on foot
caught by militants in trucks and cars. The men are then dragged away at
gunpoint from their wives and children, never to be seen again. The
younger unmarried women are being told they will be forcibly married to
ISIS fighters. Some are taken away and raped and a few have even been
sold at Mosul’s main market.
The married women aren’t sure what will happen to them and their children—they fear they will be sold into slavery.
