Bobby Ghosh in Quartz magazine:
Many Shi’ites can flee—some already have—southward, and find refuge among family and those of their own sect; many of my Shi’ite friends in Baghdad are currently sheltering northerners sent to them by religious organizations. Kurds, likewise, have been streaming into the Kurdish-dominated areas to the north and west of ISIL-controlled territory. Yet another minority, the Assyrians, most whom are Christians, have also fled south, and now await succor from the West, especially from groups of well-established Iraqi Christians in the US, who themselves fled previous spasms of persecution.
But other minorities, just as vulnerable to the wrath of ISIL, have neither international support nor nearby refuge. And ISIL seems to have identified them for special persecution.
The Yazidis: Numbering roughly 500,000, and concentrated around Sinjar, this group is ethnically Kurdish and adheres to a faith that has some aspects of ancient Zoroastrianism. Many Iraqi Muslims refer to Yazidis as “devil-worshipers,” because one of the faith’s foundational narratives of a fallen angel is similar to that of
shaitan (or Satan) in Islam. When I traveled to Sinjar in 2003, my Iraqi colleagues, Sunni and Shi’ite alike, used the term “devil-worshipers” as a joke, even a term of endearment. ISIL, however, is taking the false claim of satanism as deadly serious. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of Yazidis have already been killed and tens of thousands have been driven into the mountains around Sinjar, where they are exposed to the elements as well as ISIL execution squads.
The Shabak: Also concentrated around Sinjar, the Shabak are about one-tenth as numerous as the Yazidis, and even more vulnerable. Their faith doesn’t lend itself to easy definitions, since it is comprised of several micro-sects with elements of several religions, including Islam, Christianity and the Yazidi faith. Some Shabak identify as Shi’ite; that makes them double-heretics for ISIL, which has taken to
kidnapping Shabaks from their villages and neighborhoods in Mosul.
