Yazidis in Denmark call for the rescue of their relatives in Iraq

World Today

In Denmark, a group of Yazidi people — an Iraqi minority — are calling on the international community to rescue their relatives stranded on the mountain tops in northern Iraq. And they want to see the Islamic State militants who are surrounding them, punished.

A group of Yazidi women were inconsolable. From their Scandinavian sanctuary, there was overwhelming frustration at their powerlessness to help relatives stranded on Iraqi mountains, surrounded by Islamic State militants. Most of the Yazidis in Denmark are in constant contact with their relatives who fled, but mobile phone connections are patchy.

The Yazidi people have been persecuted through the centuries, but what they’re facing at the moment is perhaps one of the darkest moments of their culture’s history. The Islamic State regards them as devil worshipers, and considers them even worse than Christians.

The demonstrators listened as speakers urged the world to wake up and realize the threat from the group formerly known as ISIS. There was gratitude towards U.S. efforts to drop humanitarian supplies and to target the Islamic State, but it was tempered by the fear that it’s too little, too late.

CCTV America’s Malcolm Brabant reports from Copenhagen.

Yazidis in Denmark calls for attention in fear for relatives in Iraq

In Denmark, a group of Yazidi people, an Iraqi minority are calling on the international community to rescue their relatives stranded on the mountain tops in northern Iraq. And they want to see the Islamic State militants who are surrounding them, punished.