Ravi Shankar to visit refugee camp in Iraq

Spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar will visit Iraq's Kurdish capital Nov 19-20 as part of efforts to step up assistance to Yazidis who have been persecuted by Islamic insurgents.

The International Association for Human Values, a sister concern of Ravi Shankar's Art of living along with some NGO's in Iraq, has collected about 110 tonnes of food supplies to be delivered to Yazidis.

These refugees have taken shelter in the Sinjar mountains.

Ravi Shankar had earlier called on the governments of Europe, America and India to save the thousands of Yazidis trapped in the mountains In Iraq.

"America has heeded our call of help and obliged with two helicopters to airlift one and a half tonnes of food grains," he said in a statement.

"We still have several tonnes of food grains waiting to be lifted to the people trapped in the Sinjar mountains."

Ravi Shankar will visit the relief camps where a conference will be held in the Kurdish capital Erbil Nov 20.

Thousands of Christians, Yazidis and Kurdish Shias are languishing in camps in Erbil, Duhok and Khazir.

Since the early stages of the ISIS insurgence in Iraq, over 1.5 million Iraqis have been internally displaced or forced to flee across borders for their safety.