A story of heroism and generosity by a family among Iraq’s displaced people

(Vatican Radio)  Catholic Relief Services (CRS) says the situation is still dire for the vast majority of the estimated 1.2 million displaced people in northern Iraq.   Many of the displaced reached Iraqi Kurdistan after escaping  from Mount Sinjar where they had been stranded for days  following  the rapid advance of the Islamic State militants. CRS says despite the danger and hardship faced by those families who escaped under cover of darkness from the mountain, one heart-warming story of courage and generosity has come to light.  Khris Ozar, the Iraqi Emergency Response Coordinator for CRS, spoke to Susy Hodges about the humanitarian situation in general and shared with her details of this inspirational story.

Listen to the interview with Kris Ozar of CRS: 

Ozar said  the humanitarian emergency facing  the displaced people, many of them Yazidis or Christian or other religious minorities, is still huge.   Although the international humanitarian operation is now “ramping up,” and getting through life-saving supplies,  he described it as only  “a drop in the bucket” compared to the overall needs of the displaced.  

Many of these displaced people faced extreme hardship and danger in their effort to reach the relative safety of Iraq’s Kurdish region.   Ozar shared with us the “heart-warming” story  of one displaced Yazidi couple who despite those dangers did not hesitate to help others in an even more vulnerable situation.  This Yazidi couple, he said, managed to sneak away from Mount Sinbar one night and took with them not just their own two children but also 20 orphaned children, aged between 4 and 15 years of age.  All of them are now living in an abandoned building  in Iraq’s Kurdish region “with only the clothes on their back.”