News of the events began to spread. A delegation from the Ninawa provincial council visited the villages, accompanied by a military force from Iraqi Kurdistan.
“We listened to the testimonies of the victims’ families and we were able to see evidence of the looting in three of the Arab villages here from a distance,” said council member, Hosam al-Abar. “We agreed that the Iraqi Kurdish forces should impose a security barrier between the Arabs and the Yazidis here.”
The Iraqi Kurdish forces, known widely as the Peshmerga, also apparently managed to free about 30 women and children who had been kidnapped and taken to another part of Sinjar, Peshmerga leaders told locals they would stand by them.
Even so, only hours after the delegation had left a fourth village was attacked, Ali says. “But we decided to defend ourselves and we forced them to retreat.”
The fallout from the massacre saw Yazidi leaders, who have become responsible for parts of Sinjar newly liberated from the IS group, organized a meeting. They condemned the massacre and promised that such an act would never be repeated. They also said that the fighters who had carried out these acts were not able to be identified as they don’t belong to any of the known fighting factions.
The provincial council says that there are now around a thousand families who have left their homes and who are in need of shelter and aid. On the ground in the area are hundreds of armed men from the villages which were attacked, vowing to protect what is theirs should they be attacked again. In the middle are a handful of Iraqi Kurdish military. Right now things are relatively calm but if tribal justice – which calls for reparations and an eye for an eye - continues to be meted out, it is hard to say how long it will stay that way.
As for Zahra, she found shelter in the home of a nearby relative. But she couldn’t stand not knowing what had happened to her family whom she had left at the mercy of very angry fighters. So, still wearing the same black clothing she had on the night of the attack, she returned to her village to search for her husband and two young sons. She eventually found their burnt corpses in one of the houses in the village that had been set on fire.
The yezidis took them so they can trade back their people, stop with "revenge" bullshit, an yezidi have never done anyone something bad and never will.