BESIEGED BY MUSLIM GROUP ISIS, IRAQI CHILDREN DRINKING THEIR PARENTS' BLOOD TO STAY ALIVE - The refugees include Yazidis and Christians.

How refugees stranded on Mount Sinjar are cutting their hands to save their young.

Horrific stories of 30,000 Yazidis trapped by Islamic State jihadists emerge after 8,000 escape down the mountain

Hundreds of families have made it across border into Turkey and Syria after trekking for days in 45C temperatures

Minority sect has been sent scattering in all directions after Islamic State jihadists stormed their town a week ago

Some families have been forced to pay smugglers to take them through rivers and minefields to make it to safety

Another 130 U.S. troops have arrived in Iraq to assess the crisis facing 30,000 Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar

British Government also remained under pressure to consider military intervention to rescue the refugees

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.'

 

Islamic State, which sees Shi'ites as heretics who deserve death, has seized a series of towns in northern Iraq, in a sweeping advance that has left the Iraqi government reeling and prompted tens of thousands to flee.  The group has declared religious rule in a caliphate straddling Syria and Iraq, offering both Christians and members of the ancient Yazidi sect, whom it calls 'devil worshippers', the stark choice between conversion to Islam or death. 

 

It came as a former senior Iraqi politician warned that the country risks becoming another Syria unless a way to preserve its unity is found.  Hajem Hassani, previously speaker in the Iraqi parliament, said if the society did not come together, it would leave the door wide open to the Islamic State (IS). 

 

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'This is probably one of the hardest times Iraq is facing.  'If we don't come together, then probably we will open the door too wide for the IS or other terrorist organisations.  'We need to take the control...(or) it definitely will take us to the Syrian path if we are not very careful and finding ways to solve the problems.'  Asked whether newly-appointed prime minister Haider Abadi understood the need for an inclusive government, he replied: 'He should do.'

 

Read more and see additional images

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2723712/Persecuted-Iraqis-chased-ISIS-finally-reach-Syrian-refuge-camp-perilous-trek-border.html

 

More on the plight of the Yazidis on this blog

http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/search/label/Middle%20East%20-%20Yazidis

 

More on Muslim army ISIS

http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/search/label/Middle%20East%20-%20ISIS

 

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