Or as Kerry calls it, “warning signs of genocide.”
Via Daily Star:
The Yazidis appear to be paying the heaviest humanitarian price for the ambitions of ISIS, which has declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria and has threatened to march on Baghdad.
“Most of the families were stopped by Islamic State militants while they were leaving and the militants killed men. Some were beheaded,” said Abu Ali, 38, who was hiding with tens of thousands of others on Sinjar Mountain.
“One of the saddest stories was one of our relatives. They beheaded all his 15 family members in front of him and then took him with them.”
Yazidi women were hauled away for forced marriages, or perhaps slavery, as in other towns. “Some were taken to Syria,” Abu Ali said.
Many of Yazidi villages were destroyed years earlier when Saddam Hussein’s troops tried to crush the Kurds. Some were abducted by his security agents. Now they are on the defensive again.
Witnesses reached by telephone said about 100 babies died from thirst in mountains infested by snakes and scorpions. But coming down from the mountains and returning to Sinjar is a risky option.