“The [Turkish] border is our last hope. Hundreds of families started their march for their last chance of survival either by car or on foot,” Kasim Kara, Tal Afar Turkmen Front spokesman told Al-Monitor on Aug. 7, just an hour before US President Barack Obama ordered targeted airstrikes to prevent genocide and protect the civilians trapped in the Sinjar Mountains escaping the radical Islamic State (IS) militants’ threat.
With the capture of Sinjar on Aug. 3 by IS militants, hundreds of families fled to the Sinjar Mountains with only the clothes on their back, trying to escape beheading and rape of their women.