The Islamic State militants advanced Tuesday on Sinjar mountain in Iraq, as minority Yazidis called on the U.S.-led coalition to act to prevent a looming massacre.
The attack is the latest threat to minority Yazidis, who were killed in large numbers by the Islamic State militants. The militants also previously captured hundreds of Yazidi women and girls.
The Islamic State militants had started the assault on the area surrounding the Sinjar mountain in August. When the militants renewed the attack Monday, the Yazidis were forced to move up the mountain as militants used Humvees and civilian vehicles to attack their houses.
"We are outnumbered and outgunned. We don't know how long we can hold them off," said Ali Qasem, a Yazidi volunteer on the mountain, according to Reuters.
Qasem said that though many families had escaped before the militants reached Sinjar, some were not that fortunate and were trapped in residential buildings to the east of the mountain.
President Barack Obama sanctioned air strikes in Iraq in August, in order to prevent a potentially imminent genocide of Yazidis by the Islamic State militants.
Due to the air strikes, a corridor could be opened to evacuate thousands of Yazidis from the mountain. However, the mountain remains under threat and the Yazidis fear a looming massacre.
Meanwhile, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic warned that the campaign of Islamic State militants in Iraq against the Yazidi religious minority may be an attempted genocide.
Simonovic spoke to reporters Tuesday after a weeklong visit to Iraq's capital city of Baghdad and the Kurdish cities of Dohuk and Irbil.
"Actions taken against Yazidis may amount to attempt of genocide. Why? Because they are defined by their religion and the only option they have is either to convert or to be killed," said Simonovic, reports Voice of America.
Simonovice spoke with many Yazidis who had escaped from the Islamic State strongholds. Some of them included a 12 year old girl who escaped sexual slavery, a father whose four sons were executed because they refused conversion to Islam, and a boy who survived a mass killing.
Simonovic said that while the Christians were given the choice to convert to Islam, leave the area or stay and pay taxes, the Yazidis were asked to either convert or face execution.
He asked community leaders and religious authorities to condemn violations of international human rights and insist on the protection of victims regardless of their religious or ethnic connections.
