NORTHERN IRAQ — When the Islamic State captured the city of Sinjar on Aug. 3, locals say hundreds of Yazidi men were killed and thousands of Yazidi women and children kidnapped.
An estimated 50,000 members of the persecuted religious minority fled to the nearby Sinjar Mountains to escape capture by the terror group. But they were quickly surrounded by IS extremists, stranded along the mountain range without food, water or shelter. Dozens died. Days later, fearing "genocide," the United States and other countries began humanitarian aid drops to the Yazidis while the US also launched a bombing campaign against IS at the base of the mountains. Survivors who escaped, however, say they were not freed by the US bombing campaign, but instead by Kurdish separatists riding tractors into the mountains from Syria.
At least 200,000 Yazidis are now spread throughout Kurdish Iraq with no permanent home.
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