Iraq crisis: My night on the mountain of hell with dying Yazidi refugees

[flamingdem]

* I believe the US needs to help these people. This is legacy of Bush stuff.

--snip
Nights are spent trying to get some uncomfortable rest, as preparation for the next day's search for water. The heat and exposure means you cannot survive 24 hours if you cannot find any, and will fall sick after 12.

The only water already on the mountainside is in troughs left out for the goats, filthy and full of droppings - good enough to be boiled for a small cup tea, but not to sustain the elderly and the children stuck here with their families.

"The most important problem here is diarrhoea, particularly with the children," said Dr Hussein Marqat, 52, a doctor from Sinjar General Hospital who, though himself a Muslim Arab and not Yazidi, accompanied the city's residents up the mountainside when Islamic State stormed in eight days ago.

Another doctor, Aras Abdul, among volunteers flown in to help by the Iraqi army's helicopters, along with The Telegraph, said rotavirus was common. He estimated that hundreds had died across the mountain over the week.

--snip
My family consists of nearly 85 members," he said. "I sent them all up the mountain, but all but five of them were taken by Islamic State."

Through a Sunni friend acting as an intermediary, he was allowed to search for them, accompanied by other Islamic State fighters. He did not find any of them, but he counted from his neighbours that in this town alone, 100 people had been killed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11027161/Iraq-crisis-My-night-on-the-mountain-of-hell-with-dying-Yazidi-refugees.html

[flamingdem]

1. NOTE: Jane Harman on msnbc right now said that there are 100,000 people on the mountain

This is what I was seeing. Relatives of those on the mountain and those in the towns said it was over 100,000. In press conferences they said 20,000.

This is a huge number and can't be ignored. Other countries should help but the US first.