They are wholly reliant on the generosity of local people, their lives reduced to no more than the clothes on their backs.
They are the survivors of an ancient religious minority which many in the West had never even heard of until about a week ago.
The plight of Iraq’s Yazidis has triggered air drops and talk of humanitarian intervention by Britain and America.
And although US Special Forces now reckon the numbers still trapped on Mount Sinjar are fewer than previously thought, the stories of those who have escaped are horrific.
Nofa Barakat walked for 15 miles carrying Ayman, her two-month-old son, in searing heat. She explained to me that when her own breast milk ran out she kept him alive by having a mountain goat suckle him instead.
I found her towards the end of her journey, crossing the bridge from Syria into Iraq over the River Habur. Thousands like her escaped by walking down the north face of Sinjar into Syria, escorted by Kurdish fighters. The Syria-Iraq frontier is now such a blurred line on the map that if they keep walking they can cross back into Iraq further north.
“I saw two mothers bury their children,” Nofa told me. “I was not able to produce my own milk because there was no food or water. We came here because the terrorists said, ‘Either you convert to Islam or we slaughter you’.”
Camped in the same school was Ido Suleyman, who told me jihadists had shot dead his wife and two sons as the family fled. He was clinging to Araz, his only child to escape. “We don’t want Iraq and Iraq doesn’t want us,” he said. “We want to go to Europe. We can’t live in a Muslim country any more.”
I was told the father of a girl called Nesma had been beheaded and her mother killed.
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