File photo of Yazidi women
"When word reached Hanifa and her family that the fighters of the so-called Islamic State were approaching their village, they knew they would have to flee, and fast. The fanatics were coming on like a storm sweeping through the desert, and Yazidis like Hanifa's family were the special targets of their hateful fury. But Hanifa's father is partially paralyzed, unable to walk, and diabetic. She and her mother and young brother rushed to get him in the car and drive him to the uncertain refuge of the mountain that looms above the town of Sinjar. Hanifa's five younger sisters, aged 10 to 22, would follow as soon as they could gather their documents-their Iraqi IDs and ration cards. When Hanifa reached what seemed a safe place on the mountainside, she called her sisters. But they were not behind her. They were not coming. 'They said they've been taken by Daash,' as Arabic speakers call the group formerly known in English by the acronym ISIS. 'They said not to come back,' Hanifa told me. As President Barack Obama continues to ratchet up support for Kurdish fighters battling against the Islamic State in northern Iraq, hopes are raised that somehow the depredations wrought over the last few weeks can be reversed. But conversations with Hanifa and others like her among the refugees suggest there's little chance they will return home again, or ever restore their families to the way they once were. Hanifa and her father and mother and brother spent 10 days on the mountain, fearing for the girls, but powerless to help them. One of the sisters had managed to hide her cellphone, and for the first few days they were able to communicate sporadically. They said they were being held in a mosque in Tel Afar, and the men of the self-proclaimed caliphate were ordering them to forget their Yazidi faith, which dates back before Islam and Christianity to the teachings of Zoroaster..."