ERBIL, Iraq - Iraqi officials said Saturday that survivors of an ISIS attack on a northern village told them the militants killed over 80 Yazidi men there, warning that the minority group remains in danger. The officials, a Yazidi lawmaker and an official with Kurdish security forces, said that the attack happened Friday afternoon in the village of Kocho. Both said they based their information on the accounts of survivors.
Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) besieged the village for several days and gave its Yazidi residents a deadline to convert to Islam, Yazidi lawmaker Mahma Khalil said Saturday. "When the residents refused to do this, the massacre took place," Khalil said. Halgurd Hekmat, a spokesman for Kurdish security forces, said Friday night that the militants captured the women and children of Kocho and took them to the nearby city of Tal Afar, which is controlled by ISIS. Khalil, the Yazidi lawmaker, said the U.S. must do more to protect those fleeing the Islamic State group.
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- The Associated Press
