This barbaric treatment of the Yazidis by the Islamic State is a direct result of the convert-or-die dilemma that Islamic law mandates for non-Muslims who are not “People of the Book.” But no one can discuss the motivating belief system, for fear of accusations of “Islamophobia.” And that only ensures that this kind of thing will happen again.
“The Iraqi children ‘drinking their parents’ BLOOD to stay alive’: How refugees stranded on Mount Sinjar are cutting their hands to save their young,” by Simon Tomlinson, Daily Mail, August 13, 2014:
Children trapped on a mountain by Islamic State militants in Iraq are drinking blood from their parents to stay alive, it emerged today.
Their horrendous plight was revealed after some 8,000 Yazidis were finally able to escape down Mount Sinjar where they have been under siege from jihadist fighters for the last week.
Those fleeing have made it to relative safety at a camp in Dohuk Province in Kurdistan, where they have told horrific stories of the 30,000 who have been left behind.
Sky News correspondent Sherine Tadros, who is at the camp, said: ‘One man has just told us how he saw four children die of thirst.
‘There was nowhere to bury them on the mountain so they just put rocks on their bodies.
‘Another man was saying the children were so thirsty, their parents started cutting their own hands and giving them blood to drink.’
Hundreds of other families have also made it across the border after trekking for hundreds of kilometres through sweltering temperatures to safety.
They are being given food, water and medical treatment at shelters in Turkey and Syria after being driven out of their town by ISIS more than a week ago.
Some have been forced to pay smugglers their life savings to take them on perilous journeys across the border into Turkey, sometimes through minefields.
They are among several gruelling treks to freedom the community has taken after they were sent scattering to the four corners by the insurgency, which has trapped around 30,000 others on Sinjar Mountain with no food or water.
Around 2,000 Yazidis have made it to a refugee camp in Derabon, a small village near Zakho on the Iraqi Kurdistan-Turkey border.
But with no passports, many are having to sit tight and hope the uprising is crushed or pay smugglers to help them avoid the official border crossing at Habur.
One mother who suffers agonising rheumatism told how she and her three young children waded through the Tigris River, tip-toed her way through a minefield and climbed through a barbed-wire fence to make it into Turkey.
Half-way through the five-hour journey, Amal said the smuggler wanted her children to leave her behind because she was too slow, but they chose to carry her instead.
The 43-year-old told The Times: ‘My sons gathered around me and they refused. We were not afraid of dying there. We were afraid of dying at the hands of the Islamic State.’…