My glimpse of the horror and despair on besieged mountain: By JONATHAN KROHN, the first Western journalist to reach Mount Sinjar

By Jonathan Krohn

Published: 18:00 EST, 10 August 2014 | Updated: 02:24 EST, 11 August 2014


Jonathan Krohn

Mount Sinjar stinks of death. The few Yazidis who have managed to escape its clutches can tell you why.

‘Dogs were eating the bodies of the dead,’ said Haji Khedev Haydev, 65, who ran through the lines of Islamic State jihadists surrounding it.

On Sunday night, I became the first Western journalist to reach the mountains where tens of thousands of Yazidis, a previously obscure Middle Eastern sect, have taken refuge from the Islamic State forces that seized their largest town, Sinjar.

I was on board an Iraqi Army helicopter, and watched as hundreds of refugees ran toward it to receive one of the few deliveries of aid to make it to the mountain.

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Besieged: Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community cross the Syria-Iraq border at Feeshkhabour border point, in northern Iraq, on Sunday

Besieged: Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community cross the Syria-Iraq border at Feeshkhabour border point, in northern Iraq, on Sunday

Crossing: Kurdish authorities at the Syria-Iraq border at the Feeshkhabour bridge over Tigris River, in northern Iraq, believe some 45,000 Yazidis have passed the river crossing in the past week, while thousands more are still stranded in the mountains

Crossing: Kurdish authorities at the Syria-Iraq border at the Feeshkhabour bridge over Tigris River, in northern Iraq, believe some 45,000 Yazidis have passed the river crossing in the past week, while thousands more are still stranded in the mountains

Displaced: Iraqis from the Yazidi community cross the Syria-Iraq border at the Feeshkhabour border point, in northern Iraq. Islamic militants attacked the towns of Sinjar and Zunmar a few days ago

Displaced: Iraqis from the Yazidi community cross the Syria-Iraq border at the Feeshkhabour border point, in northern Iraq. Islamic militants attacked the towns of Sinjar and Zunmar a few days ago

Escape: Tens of thousands of Yazidis are understood to have crossed the border into Syria at Feeshkhabour, in northern Iraq

Escape: Tens of thousands of Yazidis are understood to have crossed the border into Syria at Feeshkhabour, in northern Iraq

 

The helicopter dropped water and food from its open gun bays to them as they waited below.

General Ahmed Ithwany, who led the mission, told me: ‘It is death mountain. Up to 70 per cent of them are dead.’

Handfuls of refugees have managed to escape on the helicopters but many are being left behind because the craft are unable to land on the rocky mountainside.

 

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There, they face thirst and starvation, as well as the crippling heat of midsummer.

The Iraqi Army is running several aid missions every day, bringing supplies including water, flour, bread and shoes.

Even when it can land, the single helicopter can take just over a dozen refugees at a time, and then only from the highest point of the mountain where it is out of range of jihadist missiles. Barely 100 have been rescued in this way.

Camp: Iraqis from the Yazidi community settle at a camp at Derike, in Syria, on Sunday. It emerged yesterday that Kurdish fighters have helped tens of thousands of Yazidis make their way to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq

Camp: Iraqis from the Yazidi community settle at a camp at Derike, in Syria, on Sunday. It emerged yesterday that Kurdish fighters have helped tens of thousands of Yazidis make their way to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq

Support: A Yazidi man carries his sick wife as displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community cross the Syria-Iraq border at Feeshkhabour, in northern Iraq

Support: A Yazidi man carries his sick wife as displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community cross the Syria-Iraq border at Feeshkhabour, in northern Iraq

Aid: Yazidis gather for humanitarian aid at the Syria-Iraq border at Feeshkhabour, northern Iraq. Tens of thousands of Yazidi refugees who fled the militants' advance found themselves trapped on barren Mount Sinjar last week

Aid: Yazidis gather for humanitarian aid at the Syria-Iraq border at Feeshkhabour, northern Iraq. Tens of thousands of Yazidi refugees who fled the militants' advance found themselves trapped on barren Mount Sinjar last week

The flights have also dropped off at least 50 armed peshmerga, Kurdish forces, on the mountain, according to Captain Ahmed Jabar.

Other refugees have made their way through Islamic State lines, evading the jihadists to reach safety, or travelling through Kurdish-controlled sections of Syria to reach the town of Dohuk.

'Dogs were eating the bodies of the dead'

Haji Khedev Haydev, Yazidi

So far the Yazidi refugees left behind have survived by hiding in old cave dwellings, drinking from natural springs and hunting small animals.

But with families scattered across Mount Sinjar, a range stretching for around 35 miles near the border with Syria, there are fears aid will not reach them all unless the humanitarian relief operation is significantly stepped up.

Hundreds can now be seen making their way slowly across its expanse, carrying what few possessions they managed to flee with on their backs.

Exhausted children lie listlessly in the arms of their parents, older ones trudging disconsolately alongside while the sun beats down overhead.

 
Flags: U.S. and Kurdish flags flutter in the wind while displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community cross the Syria-Iraq border at Feeshkhabour bridge over the Tigris River at Feeshkhabour border point, in northern Iraq

Flags: U.S. and Kurdish flags flutter in the wind while displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community cross the Syria-Iraq border at Feeshkhabour bridge over the Tigris River at Feeshkhabour border point, in northern Iraq

Carried: A man carries a small child as Yazidis cross the border into Syria at the Feeshkhabour border point in northern Iraq after leaving the Sinjar mountains

Carried: A man carries a small child as Yazidis cross the border into Syria at the Feeshkhabour border point in northern Iraq after leaving the Sinjar mountains

Tens of thousands of Yazidi refugees who fled the militants' advance found themselves trapped on barren Mount Sinjar last week. Pictured are displaced Yazidis crossing the Syria-Iraq border at Feeshkhabour border point

Tens of thousands of Yazidi refugees who fled the militants' advance found themselves trapped on barren Mount Sinjar last week. Pictured are displaced Yazidis crossing the Syria-Iraq border at Feeshkhabour border point

Border settlement: Yazidis settle at a camp in Derike, Syria, after crossing the border from Iraq on Sunday

Border settlement: Yazidis settle at a camp in Derike, Syria, after crossing the border from Iraq on Sunday

The small amount of relief the peshmerga militia can bring up into the mountain is not simply enough.

One fighter, Faisal Elas Hasso, 40, said: ‘To be honest, there’s not enough for everyone,’ he said. ‘It’s five people to one bottle.’

The refugees who made it out described desperate scenes as they awaited help from the outside world.

'It is death mountain. Up to 70 per cent of them are dead'

General Ahmed Ithwany, Iraqi Army

‘There were about 200 of us, and about 20 of that number have died,’ said Saydo Haji, who is 28. ‘We can live for two days, not more.’

Emad Edo, 27, who was rescued in an airlift on Friday at the mountain’s highest point explains how he had to leave his niece, who barely had enough strength to keep her eyes open, to her fate.

‘She was about to die, so we left her there and she died,’ he said.

Others shared similar stories. ‘Even the caves smell very bad,’ Mr Edo added. According to several of the airlifted refugees, the Geliaji cave alone has become home to 50 dead bodies.

Saydo Kuti Naner, 35, who was one of 13 Yazidis who got through Islamic State lines on Thursday morning, said he travelled through Kurdish-controlled Syria to get to Kurdistan.

Trauma: A girl with a head wound waits to be rescued on Mount Sinjar. Some 150,000 Yazidis fled their homes after the militants overran their main town

Trauma: A girl with a head wound waits to be rescued on Mount Sinjar. Some 150,000 Yazidis fled their homes after the militants overran their main town

Injured: Two child victims of the Islamic State militants. So far the Yazidi refugees left behind have survived by hiding in old cave dwellings, drinking from natural springs and hunting small animals

Injured: Two child victims of the Islamic State militants. So far the Yazidi refugees left behind have survived by hiding in old cave dwellings, drinking from natural springs and hunting small animals

He left behind his mother and father, too old to make the rough trip, as well as 200 sheep. ‘We got lucky,’ he said. ‘A girl was running [with us] and she got shot.’ This gave enough cover for the rest of them to get away.

Mikey Hassan said he, his two brothers and their families fled up into Mount Sinjar and then managed to escape to the Kurdish city of Dohuk after two days, by shooting their way past the jihadists.

'She was about to die, so we left her there and she died'

Emad Edo, Yazidi

Mr Hassan said he and his family went for 17 hours with no food before getting their hands on some bread.

The situation in Sinjar has irreparably damaged the notion of home for the Yazidis. For a large portion of them, the unique culture of the area will never return, and they will therefore have nothing to go back for.

‘We can’t go back to Sinjar mountain because Sinjar is surrounded by Arabs,’ said Aydo Khudida Qasim, 34, who said that Sunni Arab villagers around Sinjar helped Islamic State take the area.

Now he as well as many of his friends and relatives want to get out of Iraq altogether. ‘We want to be refugees in other countries, not our own,’ he said.

It emerged yesterday that Kurdish fighters have helped tens of thousands of Yazidis make their way to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

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