A sense of foreboding hung in the air on the eve of one of Iraq’s greatest modern tragedies – the killing, displacing and enslaving of tens of thousands of Yazidi men, women and children by Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi’s army of terror.
Mosul had fallen in June and they knew an ISIS attack was likely. But it wasn’t until the early hours of August 3, 2014, when vigilant men gripping rusty Kalashnikovs spotted unfamiliar vehicles heading towards them through the desert, that Iraq’s Yazidis came face to face with their killers.
In one swift assault, ISIS fighters armed to the teeth attacked and seized Yazidi towns and villages in Sinjar, north Iraq, where about 500,000 members of the religious minority lived.
In the days that followed they killed thousands and enslaved an estimated 6,383 women and children, devastating and traumatising entire communities in the process. Countless families were shattered by the loss of a mother, a daughter, a sister.
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