Turkey gives sanctuary to hundreds of Yazidis fleeing Iraq
AFP
August 8, 2014 09:48 MYT
August 8, 2014 09:48 MYT
An Iraqi Yazidi family that fled the violence in the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, sit at at a school where they are taking shelter in the Kurdish city of Dohuk in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, on August 5, 2014. - AFP Photo/Safin Hamed
Up to 800 people from Iraq's Yazidi community have fled across the border to Turkey after escaping a lightning offensive by jihadists from the Islamic State (IS) group, Turkish officials said on Thursday.
The Yazidis are the latest victims of violence in the Middle East to find sanctuary in Turkey, after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's open door policy resulted in the influx of over one million Syrian refugees into the country.
"600 to 800 Yazidis have made their own way to Turkey since Wednesday," a government official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"They have been accommodated by the local authorities in a housing complex for earthquake victims in the town of Silopi near the Iraqi border."
An attack by the IS at the weekend sparked a mass exodus from the northern part of Iraq including the town of Sinjar, where most of the population is made up of the Yazidi minority.
A Turkish foreign ministry official described the flight of the Yazidis as a "human tragedy".
"It is not possible for Turkey to remain indifferent to this. We will fulfil our responsibility," the official told AFP.
The Yazidi are a closed community that follows an ancient faith rooted in Zoroastrianism and are scorned by jihadists as "devil worshippers", a term the Yazidi themselves angrily contest.