IS surge forces thousands of Iraqis to flee toward Turkey

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey: Thousands of Iraqis, most of them ethnic minority Yazidis, have fled to the Turkish border to escape an advance by Islamic State fighters in northern Iraq, Turkish officials said on Thursday. Around 150 Yazidis were placed in state residences in Turkey’s southeastern Sirnak province and around the nearby city of Batman after crossing the border at the Habur frontier gate late on Wednesday, the officials said. “Those who have passports crossed the border, but thousands of people who don’t are waiting at the other side,” said Seyfettin Aydemir, mayor of Sirnak’s Silopi district. “We’re in talks with regional lawmakers about the situation,” he said. The Islamic State regards the Yazidis, who are followers of an ancient religion derived from Zoroastrianism and part of Iraq’s Kurdish minority, as “devil-worshippers.” Some of the many thousands of Yazidis trapped by Islamic State fighters on Sinjar mountain in northeast Iraq have been rescued in the past 24 hours, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Thursday. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey was providing intensive humanitarian aid to Iraq. REUTERS