People of the Yazidi faith in northern Iraq face an impossible choice: Stay and risk being killed by Islamist insurgents, or flee across the barren desert, facing starvation and thirst. Its hard to imagine the suffering that minority Yazidis have endured in recent weeks as they've fled from ISIS militants into remote, rugged, sparse mountains. "With my own eyes, I saw dogs feeding off dead bodies," one of those Yazidis, a man named Tariq, told CNN. "It's not a crisis. It's a catastrophe." Descendants of Kurds and followers of an ancient pre-Islamic religion, Yazidis are small in number with a big sense of community.
@highlight
Thousands of minority Yazidis have fled from ISIS into remote Iraqi mountains
@highlight
Islamic militants told them to convert to Islam, be imprisoned or die
@highlight
One Yazidi recalls fleeing ISIS in the heat of summer, without food or drink
@highlight
"I saw dogs feeding off dead bodies," he recalls
An @placeholder messenger caught up with them there to deliver an ultimatum: Convert by noon the next day or die.