By Associated Press Iekhan Safar moved from Iraq to Lincoln for the same reason that hundreds of Yazidis, a Kurdish religious minority, came to Nebraska's capital city: to live near family, far from the dangers they've long faced as a persecuted group. Lincoln has the largest concentration of Yazidis (yah-ZEE-dees) in the United States, and many of them brought their families to the U.S. after receiving visas for serving as translators during the first Gulf War. Now, the city is at the center of a frantic effort to draw attention to the group's plight in northern Iraq, where Yazidis are fleeing from Islamic State militants to escape violence and attempts to convert them to Islam.
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Lincoln, Neb., has the highest concentration of Yazidis, a Kurdish religious minority, in the U.S.
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City has become center of effort to draw attention to the group's plight
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Thousands of homeless Yazidi families are packed into a refugee camp on a remote desert Sinjar mountain range near the country's northern border, where there is little access to food, water or shelter
If granted, many would likely join relatives in Lincoln, where roughly half the nation's @placeholder population — about 200 families — lives.