FIRST JOURNALIST REACHES MOUNTAIN SITE WHERE YAZIDIS ARE BESIEGED BY MUSLIM ISIS AND DYING WHILE WAITING FOR HELP - Jonathan Krohn's account on what he found there



Yazidis walking to Syrian border - Photo Reuters, Daily Mail

DAILY MAIL - Last week, some 40,000 Iraqi refugees had to face the prospect of starvation as they took on the harsh conditions of Mount Sinjar after being driven from their homes by ISIS militants. 

Tens of thousands of Yazidis were forced to flee the town of Sinjar after the militants overran the area, with many taking refuge on the the barren mountain top.

There, they were left with the bleak choice of descending to risk being slaughtered, or hoping their attackers were defeated before they died of thirst or hunger.

Now, as foreign troops, including British RAF personnel, deliver aid into the area, American journalist Jonathan Krohn reports from the mountains after becoming the first reporter to reach the besieged region.


Mount Sinjar stinks of death. The few Yazidis who have managed to escape its clutches can tell you why.

‘Dogs were eating the bodies of the dead,’ said Haji Khedev Haydev, 65, who ran through the lines of Islamic State jihadists surrounding it.

On Sunday night, I became the first Western journalist to reach the mountains where tens of thousands of Yazidis, a previously obscure Middle Eastern sect, have taken refuge from the Islamic State forces that seized their largest town, Sinjar.

I was on board an Iraqi Army helicopter, and watched as hundreds of refugees ran toward it to receive one of the few deliveries of aid to make it to the mountain. 

The small amount of relief the Kurdish peshmerga militia can bring up into the mountain is not simply enough.

One fighter, Faisal Elas Hasso, 40, said: ‘To be honest, there’s not enough for everyone,’ he said. ‘It’s five people to one bottle.’

The refugees who made it out described desperate scenes as they awaited help from the outside world. 

There were about 200 of us, and about 20 of that number have died,’ said Saydo Haji, who is 28. ‘We can live for two days, not more.’

Emad Edo, 27, who was rescued in an airlift on Friday at the mountain’s highest point explains how he had to leave his niece, who barely had enough strength to keep her eyes open, to her fate.  ‘She was about to die, so we left her there and she died,’ he said.

Others shared similar stories. ‘Even the caves smell very bad,’ Mr Edo added. According to several of the airlifted refugees, the Geliaji cave alone has become home to 50 dead bodies.
Saydo Kuti Naner, 35, who was one of 13 Yazidis who got through Islamic State lines on Thursday morning, said he travelled through Kurdish-controlled Syria to get to Kurdistan.

Read more - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2721415/JONATHAN-KROHN-My-glimpse-horror-despair-besieged-Mount-Sinjar.html

Jonathan Krohn's Twitter account - https://twitter.com/JonathanLKrohn

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