 On 8 August, PKK was providing humanitarian aid and camps to more than 3,000 Yazidi refugees.By 20 October, 2,000 Yazidis, mainly volunteer fighters, who had remained behind to protect the villages, but also civilians (700 families who had not yet escaped), were reported as still in the Sinjar area, and were forced by ISIL to abandon the last villages in their control, Dhoula and Bork, and retreat to the Sinjar Mountains.In an article by "The Washington Post", it was stated that an estimated 7,000 Yazidis had been forced to convert to "the Islamic State group's harsh interpretation of Islam".