The Obama administration is declaring the mission to rescue Yazidi refugees who are trapped on Mount Sinjar in Northern Iraq a qualified success warranting no further intervention. Meanwhile, media reports that children trapped there are drinking their parents’ blood to stay alive.
U.S. Military advisors announced late Wednesday that a reconnaissance of the area earlier in the day revealed “far fewer” Yazidis than the 30,000 they had expected, and those who were still there were well-supplied with food and water, according to McClatchyDC, which reported:
The Pentagon said the visit proved that the actions the United States had taken in recent days had succeeded in preventing the Islamic State from capturing and executing the Yazidis, members of a religious sect that Sunni extremists view as heretics. It said the assessment team encountered no hostile forces during its visit and “did not engage in combat operations.”
Brett McGurk, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Near East Affairs, said the assessment team had spent 24 hours in the mountains. He declared via Twitter that the U.S. actions had “broken the siege,” a sentiment repeated by State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf: “President said we’re going to break the siege of this mountain, and we broke that siege.”
Also on Wednesday, Sky News painted a bleaker picture of the refugees still trapped by ISIS terrorists.
Sky correspondent Sherine Tadros visited a refugee camp in Dohuk, Northern Iraq, where Yazidis who were rescued from Mount Sinjar said thousands still remained on the mountaintop, and are barely surviving in deplorable conditions.
While some children died and their bodies buried under rocks–all that they had available to them — others survived only by drinking the blood offered to them by their parents.
Although the camp offers the security of distance from the Islamic militants, conditions there are far from ideal. The Yazisis rely on the locals for food and water, and there are only two toilets and three to four showers to service the estimated 6,000 refugees.
Also on Wednesday, the rioting in Ferguson continued, while the Obamas enjoyed a night on the dance floor in Martha’s Vineyard.
#Ferguson explodes, Meanwhile “The Obamas danced nearly every song. A good time was had by all” http://t.co/5YaxJSYrmT Washington Post
— Truth Tweeter (@redostoneage) August 14, 2014
Watch the Sky News video.
http://youtu.be/CHJGyKTQXtI
