SIRNAK, Turkey
Iraq's Yazidi religious minority in the town of Sinjar near Mosul city, have started to flee to Turkey to escape attacks from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
As many as 500 Yazidis - a Kurdish ethno-religious community who are dominant in the Nineveh Province of northern Iraq - have been killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Sinjar since Sunday, a Yazidi lawmaker claimed on Tuesday.
Sinjar is the traditional home of the Yazidi, an eclectic religious sect fusing Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Jewish, Nestorian Christian and Islamic elements. Orthodox Islamic scholars regard them as heretical.
Yazidis, also known as Yezidi or Ezidi, left their towns and villages due to the violence and arrived in Turkey's Silopi district in the southeastern Sirnak province.
Haydar Omer, one of the Yazidis fleeing from his country, told Anadolu Agency they had to leave their hometowns after ISIL militants set their houses and villages on fire.
"ISIL members were massacred in Til Ezir by cutting men's heads off, also women and girls were kidnapped and brought to Mosul," Omer said adding, "We did not have any guns to fight them so we had to leave to come to Turkey. We will go to our relatives here."
Another Yazidi, Nidal Halid, stated they asked for weapons from the Kurdistan Democratic Party's (KDP) Peshmerga forces but they did not give them any claiming that they (KDP) would defend them.
Halid explained ISIL guerillas captured all villages near Sinjar in the early morning.
"Dozens of children have died of hunger and thirst so far," he said.
The ISIL-led militants seized control of the town of Sinjar near the city of Mosul on Sunday after fierce clashes, which saw Kurdish Peshmerga forces withdraw from the region they had protected since insurgents overran Mosul and the surrounding localities in June.
Iraqi MP Fayyan Dahel said, during a press conference Tuesday, that around 100 people had lost their lives out of the 30,000 Yazidis who fled for shelter following ISIL's advances.
50 killed in Iraq on Wednesday
At least 15 inmates and civilians held hostage by ISIL-led militants were killed Wednesday when Iraqi warplanes bombed Ahdas prison in Mosul, according to officials from a nearby hospital, Al-Jamhuri Teaching Hospital.
Many other civilians were injured during the bombing of the prison which is controlled by ISIL.
In a separate incident, the Iraqi army confirmed on Wednesday that at least 35 ISIL militants were killed in central Iraqi city of Ramadi during the ongoing clashes between the Iraqi army and militants.
The violence escalated since early June after a coalition of armed insurgent groups led by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, (ISIL) took control of large swathes of the country's predominantly Sunni provinces.
www.aa.com.tr/en
