Religion in Iraq

Turkey has become a refuge - and a huge field hospital - for increasing numbers of people fleeing their homelands, while continuing to send humanitarian aid to a number of conflict zones in the region.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has vowed to hand over the leadership of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) after consultations, as he prepares to take over the presidency from Abdullah Gül on Aug. 28.

Iraqi Yazidi lawmaker Feyyan Dahil, who was brought to Turkey after being injured in a helicopter crash while carrying aid to displaced members of her community in northern Iraq, underwent surgery in an Istanbul hospital on Aug. 13.

Doctors have said Dahil had a broken leg and two broken ribs but her condition was not life-threatening. She will undergo second surgery on Aug. 14.

Yazidis fleeing a jihadist onslaught in northern Iraq say neighbours took up arms alongside their attackers, informing on members of the religious minority and helping the militants take over.

Turkey’s disaster agency will set up a tent city in Zakho, northern Iraq, to host around 16,000 Yazidi people who fled the Sinjar region amid ongoing attacks by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

A New York Times reporter and a photographer have been brought to Turkey after being injured when a helicopter carrying aid to displaced members of the Yazidi community crashed in Iraq, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said via Twitter on Aug. 13.

UN rights monitors called Tuesday for the global community to take urgent action to avoid a potential genocide against the Yazidi community in Iraq.
      
Thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority are trapped on a mountain in northwestern Iraq with little food or water after Islamic State jihadists overran the region.
      

Western countries are concentrating their diplomatic effort in Iraq's capital Baghdad, in a push to stop the Sunni insurgents called Islamic State.

France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has urged that a "broad unity government" be forged in the country to combat the militants while on a visit to Baghdad, France 24 quoted him as saying.

Islamic State militants have killed at least 500 members of Iraq's Yazidi ethnic minority during their offensive in the north, Iraq's human rights minister told Reuters on Aug. 10.

Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said the Sunni militants had also buried alive some of their victims, including women and children. Some 300 women were kidnapped as slaves, he added.

The United States carried out new air strikes and aid drops Aug. 10, as President Barack Obama vowed to help rescue thousands of civilians besieged by jihadists on an Iraqi mountain.