NGO: nearly 1,300 Yazidis left Iraq illegally in three weeks

Shafaq News/ Nearly 1,300 Yazidis have left Iraq for Europe in the past 21 days, a non-government organization reported on Thursday.

The head of "Alind Movement for Youth Democratization", Shirzad Mohammad, told Shafaq News Agency, "over the past three weeks, 1,273 Yazidis to Turkey via illegal routes toward Europe; 85% of whom used to live in camps inside the Kurdistan region."

"The psychological burden of losing family members during the 2014 invasion of ISIS, the eight-year-long suffering in displacement camps, the recent security upheaval in Sinjar... All contributed to the mass migration to Europe," Nagham Nozat, a human rights activist, said on the phenomenon.

Data showed that more than 300 families have moved to camps inside the Kurdistan region from Sinjar since August 1, bringing the toll of the Yazidis who have left Iraq since 2014 to 100,000 from a total of 550,000 living in the country prior to this date.