The face of 15-year-old Aziza says it all.
Her mouth slightly agape, tears stream down her face as she glances around the inside of a helicopter with confusion in her eyes.
She looks completely exhausted, overcome with emotion. She cries the whole flight to safety.
The Iraqi air force and fighters with the Kurdish peshmerga carried out a dramatic rescue mission Monday at Mount Sinjar, taking supplies to desperate Yazidis and ferrying a handful of people out, including Aziza.
A CNN crew was on the flight that took diapers, milk, water and food to the site where thousands of people have been driven by ISIS, which calls itself the Islamic State.
CNN’s Ivan Watson, who was on the chopper, described the mission as “heroic.”
Teams hurled out bags and boxes of food from as high as 50 feet before approaching the ground.
“We landed on several short occasions, and that’s where — amid this explosion of dust and chaos — these desperate civilians came racing towards the helicopter, throwing their children on board the aircraft. The crew was just trying to pull up as many people as possible,” Watson said.
Soon, some of the trapped families — including babies and the elderly — were packed into the flight. A man held a water bottle for a woman trying drink, her head propped up on his shoulder.
Others didn’t make it and were left behind as the helicopter pulled away.
“It was chaotic. It was crazy, but we were able to then lift off with about 20 civilians,” Watson said.
Kurdish official warns of genocide
Yazidis, among Iraq’s smallest minorities, are of Kurdish descent, and their religion is considered a pre-Islamic sect that draws from Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism.
One of the oldest religious communities in the world, they have long suffered persecution, with many Muslims referring to them as devil worshippers.
More than a week ago, they fled into the surrounding mountains when ISIS fighters stormed the town of Sinjar.
Now, trapped without food, water or medical care in the summer heat, thousands of families are in desperate need of help.
A senior Kurdish official warned Monday of the potential of genocide against the Yazidi people.
Speaking to CNN’s Watson, Fazil Mirani repeatedly called for a humanitarian intervention. He estimated that as many as 70,000 people remain trapped on Mount Sinjar, and that at least 100 people have died so far from dehydration and the heat.
CNN could not independently confirm those estimates.
‘They flew in shooting; they flew out shooting’
The United States on Monday conducted airstrikes on four ISIS checkpoints and “multiple” ISIS vehicles near Mount Sinjar, according to U.S. Central Command.
“Our aircraft remain positioned to strike any terrorist forces around the mountain who threaten the safety of these families,” President Barack Obama said the same day. “We’re working with international partners to develop options to bring them to safety.”
Back on the helicopter, the relief of those already rescued was palpable.
The crowd on board burst into tears as the chopper took off. Young and old, women and men, civilians and servicemen — all cried with the intensity of the moment.
Gunners had to open fire at the ground in order to make it away from ISIS.
“They flew in shooting; they flew out shooting,” Watson reported.
“There was not a dry eye on the aircraft.”
A Yazidi woman (Photo Credit: Evangelical Movement of Wales)
A Yazidi boy in their summecamp. (Photo Credit: Jesper's Blog)
An Iraqi Yazidi mother who fled the violence in the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, sits with her children at a school where they are taking shelter in the Kurdish city of Dohuk in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, on August 5, 2014 (Photo Credit: Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images)
Yazidis celebrate New Year in Iraq (Photo Credit: Al Jazeera)
Yazidi worshippers engaging in a prayer ceremony during Eid al-Jamma. (Photo Credit: Business Insider)
Here, Yazidis pay their respects within the Lalish temple. The Yazidis were victims of the worst terror attack of last decade's Iraq War, when suicide bombings killed more than 400 Yazidis in 2007. (Photo Credit: Business Insider)
Yazidis girls fleeing from the violent sect, ISIS.
Displaced families from the minority Yazidi sect, fleeing the violence, walk on the outskirts of Sinjar, west of Mosul (Photo Credit: Reuters)
Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community arrive to the camp of Bajid Kandala at Feeshkhabour town near the Syria-Iraq border, in Iraq Saturday, Aug. 9, 2014. The displacement of at least tens of thousands of Yazidis- Kurdish speakers of an ancient Mesopotamian faith - means yet another Iraqi minority has been peeled away as extremists continue their sweep of Iraq, seizing territory they brutally administer. The Islamic State group fighters already caused the expulsion of Iraq’s Christians, (Photo Credit: AP)
Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community arrive to the camp of Bajid Kandala at Feeshkhabour town near the Syria-Iraq border, in Iraq Saturday, Aug. 9, 2014. The displacement of at least tens of thousands of Yazidis- Kurdish speakers of an ancient Mesopotamian faith - means yet another Iraqi minority has been peeled away as extremists continue their sweep of Iraq, seizing territory they brutally administer. The Islamic State group fighters already caused the expulsion of Iraq’s Christians, (Photo Credit: AP)
Yazidi women who fled violence in the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar sit at a school where they are taking shelter in Dohuk on August 5, 2014. (Photo Credit: SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images)
A displaced family from the minority Yazidi sect flees the violence in Sinjar, Iraq, west of Mosul, on Tuesday. Tens of thousands fled the weekend assault on Sinjar and are now surrounded, according to witnesses and the United Nations.
(Photo Credit: Reuters/Landov)
Iraqi Yazidis flee from Sinjar due to attacks of army groups led by Islamic State (IS) to Lalesh enshrined Kurdish city of Dohuk, Iraq on August 5, 2014. (Photo Credit: Hamit Huseyin/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Displaced families from the minority Yazidi sect, fleeing the violence in the Iraqi town of Sinjarl west of Mosul, take refuge at Dohuk province on August 4, 2014 (Photo Credit: Reuters)
Members of the minority Yazidi sect walk towards the Syrian border as they flee violence from forces loyal to the Islamic State, August 10, 2014. Thousands from the group have left their homes to seek safety. (Photo Credit: Rodi Said / Reuters)
A Yazidi family that fled violence in northern Iraq sits at at a school where they are taking shelter in the Kurdish city of Dohuk on August 5, 2014. (Photo Credit: SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images)
A displaced Iraqi Christian woman holds a picture of her four-year-old relative, David, who was killed by militants. (Photo Credit: US News)
Iraqi Christians who fled the violence in the village of Qaraqush, about 30 kilometres east of the northern province of Nineveh, rest upon their arrival at the Saint-Joseph church in the Kurdish city of Arbil, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, on August 7, 2014. Gunmen from the Sunni Muslim Islamic State (IS) seized Qaraqush, Iraq's largest Christian town, and several others near Mosul following the withdrawal of Kurdish peshmerga fighters, inhabitants said. (Photo Credit: SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images)
An Iraqi Yazidi woman who fled the violence in the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, cries as she stands among others at a school where they are taking shelter in the Kurdish city of Dohuk in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, on August 5, 2014. Islamic State (IS) Sunni jihadists ousted the Peshmerga troops of Iraq's Kurdish government from the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, forcing thousands of people from their homes. The Yazidis, are a small community that follows a 4,000-year-old faith and have been repeatedly targeted by jihadists who call them "devil-worshipers" because of their unique beliefs and practices. (Photo Credit: SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images)
Iraqi Turkman Shiite children displaced from the northern Iraqi area of Tal Afar take shelter in a school in Sadr City, one of Baghdad's northern Shiite-majority districts, on August 5, 2014 after fleeing fighting between the Islamic State (IS) militants and Kurdish forces in both Tal Afar and later in Sinjar. Baghdad's air force and Kurdish fighters from Syria joined forces with Iraq's embattled peshmerga to push back jihadists whose latest attacks sent thousands of civilians running for their lives. (Photo Credit: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images)
Yazidi families adapt to the difficult circumstances at the construction site. (Photo Credit: Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP / Getty Images)
A scene inside the building under construction where the Yazidis have taken refuge. (Photo Credit: Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP / Getty Images)
A U.S. flag waves while displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community cross into Syria. (Photo Credit: Khalid Mohammed / AP)
Yazidis fleeing violence ride in the back of a truck toward the Syrian border. (Photo Credit: Rodi Said / Reuters)
Young Yazidis sit in the trunk of a car. Iraqi officials say that hundreds of members of the sect have been killed by forces loyal to Islamic state. (Photo Credit: Rodi Said / Reuters)
Read More
Like this:
Like Loading...
