Kurdistan Dispatch No. 6: “ISIS Told Us that the Kurds Would Behead Us if We Ran Away”

13 November, 2016

Bashiqa, Northern Iraq

IDPs unload their belongings at the camp outside Bashiqa. Photo: FBR.

Dear friends,

We have been supporting the Kurds medically as they make their drive towards taking the ISIS-occupied village of Bashiqa on the outskirts of Mosul. It has been a bloody week with many clashes. Hundreds of IDPs have fled the Mosul area to take shelter near us.

Now there are 500 camped out across the trench on the Peshmerga front line north west of Bashiqa. We have set up camp so that we sleep among them.

This newest group of displaced people said they had not eaten in two days and were very thirsty. They told us that ISIS threatened them if they tried to flee, telling them that even if they did escape from ISIS, the Kurds would behead them. “We decided to face death with the Kurds rather than stay with ISIS,” the people told us.

I told them, “Please call your friends and tell them the Kurds will take care of them. We have plenty of food and water and blankets.

“They got on their cell phones and began calling. Soon on the horizon came a line of fully packed cars and trucks waving white flags.

We gave out water and food and blankets from the Barzani Foundation. Our Karen FBR medic, Joseph, began to see the sick and we prayed with the families. Thank you for making it possible to help people in need.

God bless you,

Dave, family and the Kurdistan team