Turkey Gives Sanctuary to Hundreds of Yazidis Fleeing Iraq








"It is not possible for Turkey to remain indifferent to this. We will fulfill our responsibility," the official told AFP.

The Yazidi are a closed community that follows an ancient faith rooted in Zoroastrianism and are scorned by jihadists as "devil worshipers", a term the Yazidi themselves angrily contest.

The advance of Islamist militants in northern Iraq has alarmed Turkey, which is still trying to secure the release of dozens of citizens held by the IS in Iraq's second largest city, Mosul

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu held a three-hour long crisis meeting Thursday with military and intelligence chiefs to discuss the potential fallout from Iraq.

"There is a circle of fire in the region surrounding Turkey," he said, adding that some neighboring governments had lost control of their countries.





Officials say Turkey set up an aid center at the Habur border gate and dispatched trucks carrying food and medicine to cities across northern Iraq.





Meanwhile, several Yazidi families who had been hiding from jihadists on a northern Iraqi mountain have used a safe passage provided by Turkish Kurdish fighters to reach Syria, a spokesman said.

"We opened a safe passage to protect the people of Sinjar and we started transferring them to West Kurdistan," PKK spokesman Bakhtiar Dogan told AFP.

West Kurdistan refers to the separatist Kurdish region of northern Syria which borders Turkey and Iraq.

"We engaged Daash (Islamic State) fighters several times and are ready to keep fighting for the sake of our people," he said, without specifying how many families had been rescued.

Kurdish fighters from Iraq, Syria and Turkey appeared to agree earlier this week to share the burden of containing IS fighters who have been making significant gains in northern Iraq lately.

Turkish officials said that at least 800 Yazidis have made their own way to Turkey since Wednesday.

Dogan confirmed that "any of those who crossed into Turkey probably got there by themselves because those who fled through our safe passage and with our assistance went to Syrian Kurdish towns."

The Sinjar mountains are a barren range stretching over around 60 kilometers (35 miles), with a peak at nearly 1,500 meters.

Comments 1
Thumb music66 07 August 2014, 16:10

The Jihadists have become a menace on planet earth. Very sad for the middle east. Heartbreaking to see so many countries who are suffering at the hands of people like this. Israeli Zionists and Jihadists are not doing any good on earth at all. What will it take for international military support to assist countries who are affected by them. Why is the UNITED nations not acting. Talk is cheap by political leaders. Too many lives have been destroyed. When will the suffering end.