A new map is being drawn across the plains of northern Iraq as Sunni militants of the Islamic State purge the rural landscape of religious and ethnic minorities that have co-existed for hundreds of years.
More than half a million people have been displaced across Iraq since June, when the north's biggest city, Mosul, fell to Sunni insurgents who have have harried Shi'ite Turkmen and Shabaks, Yezidis and Christians.
Even before the fall of Mosul, Yezidis, who follow an ancient monotheistic religion with elements of nature worship and are branded devil worshippers by the hardline Islamists, hardly dared set foot in the city, which has been a nerve centre for the Sunni insurgency since 2003. [Reuters] Read more
