ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—A tribal chief said he is deeply worried about the fate of more than 2,000 Yezidi villagers who were believed to have returned to their village on Sunday after receiving assurances from the Islamic militants.
Khalaf Elias, chief of the Issa clan said that local Arabs had told him that the Yezidi families had returned to their village of Wardi, but that he wasn’t sure of their fate or whereabouts.
“Through local Arabs the ISIS asked the Wardi village chief to let his people return to their homes and that they will be safe,” Elias explained. “They returned and now their fate is unknown.”
Elias who has taken refuge on a rocky mountain with hundreds of other Yezidi families told Rudaw by phone that the militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) had captured and taken away more than 50 Yezidi families.
“What I know now is that all those families have been killed,” he reported.
Elias said that unless help reaches them soon “the lives of 10,000 Yezidis on the mountain is at grave risk.”
According to this tribal chief, the Islamic militants who advanced into Zumar, Shangal and other Yezidi villages have an official decree to annihilate the Yezidi population of the region.
“Thousands of Yezidis are stuck on this mountain and the ISIS can come to them at any moment,” he said. “We don’t have any weapon to defend ourselves.”
On Sunday afternoon thousands of Kurdish Peshmerga forces were dispatched to the frontline at Shangal, armed with advanced weapons.
Anwar Haji Osman from the Peshmerga Ministry said that their forces will soon deal the ISIS “a deadly blow,”
“This is not only talk, people will see it for themselves soon,” he said.
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