◼ After escaping a terrorist-besieged Iraqi town with his family, 2-year-old Hassan was wounded when a suicide bomb went off near a mosque. - Josh Siegel/The Daily Signal
The blast in the Kurdistan-controlled Kirkuk province, set off by terrorists from the group Islamic State, killed the boy’s entire immediate family. Today, three weeks later, the toddler remains in the hospital, bandages covering much of his face.
Dr. Ali al-Bayati, head of an Iraq-based humanitarian group called the Turkmen Saving Foundation, said of Hassan:
He belongs to a refugee family who left Amerli seeking a safe place after the savage attack of the terrorists to their city. He lost his family, as they were killed in the explosion with many of his relatives as well.The Turkmen in Amerli are not waiting for U.S. direction, al-Bayati told The Daily Signal. He said 5,000 Turkmen volunteers are fighting the Islamic State jihadists in Amerli.
At least 15,000 civilians, including many women and children, are trapped in Amerli without access to food or water, he said.
The United Nations special representative for Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, said last weekend that the situation in Amerli “demands immediate action to prevent the possible massacre of its citizens.”
