Turkmen Shias flee to Holy Najaf escaping ISIL onslaught

Shia Turkmen families from Tal Afar in Northern Iraq have been fleeing south to the holy city of Najaf to escape so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group’s onslaught in the north of the country.

After the Takfiri group captured vast swaths of territory in northern Iraq, thousands of Turkmen were forced to flee.

Turkmen account for Iraq’s third largest ethnic minority, after the Arabs and Kurds, and had been living primarily in areas where some of the most intense clashes have taken place.

With the capture of Sinjar on Aug. 3 by ISIL terrorists, hundreds of families fled to the Sinjar Mountains with only the clothes on their back, trying to escape beheading and rape of their women.

They then moved to camps on the outskirts of Iraq’s autonomous three-province Kurdish region, however, Kurdish authorities have blocked those fleeing the conflict in northern Iraq from entering the autonomous region without a resident sponsor.

An estimated 50,000 newly displaced Shiite Turkmen have fled to Holy Najaf.