A letter from Kurdistan: “Yazidi beaten up by security forces while demanding help”

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As previously reported, Yazidi who were able to escape from Mount Sinjar are in Kurdistan. They did not leave their problem behind and their struggle is far from over. They are actually facing a humanitarian crisis.  In the Kurdistan Region there are more than 300,000 Yazidi refugees but there is no external support. There are no camps and thousands sleep on the streets hoping to leave Iraq as soon as possible. “We are not safe here,” they claimed. The news flow from Kurdistan is slow and sporadic. There is a growing tension in cities such as Zakho and Dohuk, at the Turkish border, said Farhan a former US Army interpreter.

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“I want to go back to Iraq and finish the job”

I wrote this article in Italian for The Post Internazionale and you can find it here, an abstract in English below:

“I want to go back and finish the job.” Jake is a 24 years-old veteran and he wants to fight in Iraq. He had been in the army for five years, 13 months of which he had spent in Iraq protecting the Golden Mosque at Samarra. He also trained the Iraqi army. Now he is trying to go back “to protect the people of Iraq and honor the ones [U.S. soldiers] who paid the ultimate sacrifice.” About 4,400 U.S. soldiers lost their lives in the 8-year long war. On June 7 when Jake saw Mosul falling into ISIS hands he immediately tried to re-enlist in the army, but the recruiters did not take him back. “I felt abandoned,” he told me.

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Benedetta Argentieri

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