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Newsday: Yazidi Slaves Rescued From Islamic State

Silhouettes of Two Yazidi Women

12/06/2015

Yazidi Slaves Rescued From Islamic State

BBC World Service - Newsday, Yazidi Slaves Rescued From Islamic State

Yazidi slaves rescued; Taliban priest; Buffalo battles in US

Extraordinary acts of bravery are talking place in northern Iraq, as Yazidi slaves are bought back, for $2000 a head from IS by smugglers, helped by funding from the Kurdish Regional Government. The Yazidi's, an ancient religious minority, are considered as sub-human according to IS doctrine and thousands have been killed, raped, and enslaved by IS militants. Freelance journalist Emily Feldman has been to Kurdish Iraq to investigate.

Father Prem Kumar was kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan last year and spent the next eight months in captivity; regularly he was told he would be killed. The Jesuit priest became well-known for his preaching of tolerance - even to his captors. And even the Pope specifically asked to meet him. He has given his first interview since his release to Newsday and he happened to be in the Vatican when he spoke to us, having just met the Pontiff.

Buffalo roaming free across the open, wide skies of the prairie is an enduring, if historical, image of the mid-west of United States. Now conservationists in the mid-west are trying to re-create the landscape the first settlers came across; before the Native Americans were driven out and the bison killed. But not everyone wants to create an American version of the Serengeti, like ranchers who have farmed the land in the state of Montana for generations and who are fighting the rich philanthropists who want to make it happen.

(Picture: Yazidi women in silhouette; Credit: BBC)

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