Hindu-Americans ask US to protect Yezidis from ISIS in Iraq

WASHINGTON: A large number of Hindu-Americans joined the local Yezidis in a peaceful protest outside the White House here, asking the US government to take urgent steps to protect the minority community from the ISIS in Iraq.

Raising slogans 'Bring Our Women Back!' and 'Save Mt Shingal' the demonstrators urged President Barack Obama to take effective action in defense of the Yezidis fighting on Mt Shingal and to provide assistance in the rescue of the thousands of enslaved Yezidi women and girls.

Many of the Yezidi women and girls have been abducted and sold into slavery and their homes and lands overrun by the Islamic State militant group, which is methodically targeting them for slavery, conversion and death, the protestors said.

Both the American Yezidis and Hindu communities issued an urgent call for the immediate relief and support for the armed Yezidis resistance efforts on Mt Shingal, the rescue of the 7,000 enslaved Yezidi women and girls and the distribution of humanitarian aid to the Yezidi refugees across the region.

In a media release, the Hindu community issued an appeal for donations and humanitarian aid on behalf of the struggling Yezidis.

ISIS or IS is an al-Qaeda splinter group and it has seized hundreds of square miles in Iraq and Syria, declaring an Islamic Caliphate.

Al-Qaeda has distanced itself from the group, chiding it for its lack of teamwork in its aggressive, brutal expansion.