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By Mufid Abdulla:
Vian Daxil
As a result of the ISIS occupation of Shengal last Friday, the women, children and old people of this town fled to the nearby mountains and some have already died of hunger and dehydration, among them at least 8 pregnant women and 12 children. Vian Daxil, a Yazidi Kurd MP in the Iraqi parliament, has made a moving appeal about the plight of thousands of her fellow citizens, many of whom face death if the world cannot come to help them.
“Yazidi woman are raped and killed in the name of Islam”, she said. “We have to be united. ISIS is not only against Yazidis, it is against Sunis, Shias, Kurds, every one. We have to forget about our political differences. We have to do something to save the lives of 20,000 people”.
The forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) yesterday launched a comprehensive counter-attack in the area and they managed to take control of areas surrounding Shengal, but the dimensions of this tragedy are so considerable that time is not on the side of local citizens inside and outside the town. ISIS is one the most brutal creatures created by the forces of darkness and backwardness in the Middle East. It has killed about 500 Yazidi Kurds, at the same time as subjecting women to rape and trafficking. The Yazidis who escaped to the mountains are now so remote that aid cannot easily be brought to them.
The point here is: how can the world help people who have become the victims of ISIS terror without any direct involvement? The world needs to awaken, not only to the cry of Vian Daxi, but to the thousands of Yazidi Kurds whose lives are in peril and who face even greater atrocities at the hands of ISIS. The Western world can help by providing air cover to peshmarga forces fighting ISIS. The USA, with its powerful military technologies, can help if it wants to.
