CÎLAN ROJ

Shengal (Sinjar)- 11 years ago, ISIS attacked Shengal on August 3, 2014, killing hundreds of Yazidis and abducting thousands of Yazidi women and children. The whereabouts of thousands of the abducted women and children still remain unknown. The whole world played ostrich against the atrocities of ISIS against the Yazidi community while freedom fighters did not remain silent by waging a heroic resistance to protect the Yazidi people against the atrocities of ISIS.

 During the genocide committed by ISIS against the Yazidi community, many members of Qemer Lîfa Xidir’s family, including her daughter and grandchildren, were abducted by ISIS and their whereabouts still remain unknown. Qemer Lîfa Xidir feels like as if the genocide was committed only yesterday because the genocide has left her in great despair.

ISIS attacked Shengal during the Yazidi Summer Festival. “It was the evening of the summer festival when we heard that ISIS was attacking. Our relatives were living in southern Shengal and we began to flee at 10 a.m. in the morning. One of our neighbors, who was a soldier, told us ‘run now, they are abducting women and killing men.’ On that day, all Yazidis fled to the desert.”

73 women killed by ISIS

ISIS first attacked the Yazidi community from the south of Shengal, killing and abducting Yazidis and destroying their houses. On the first day of the genocide, Qemer Lîfa Xidir was in northern Shengal; however, her children and most of her relatives were in southern of Shelgal.

“ISIS first attacked the Yazidi people in southern Shengal. We thought that everyone there had been killed by ISIS. Then, we learned that many had fled to the mountains. We heard that 73 old women had been killed by ISIS in the village of Kocho. They were killed because they were Yazidis.”

On the way to the mountains, many Yazidis, including children, died of thirst and starvation. Qemer’s daughter, three sons, daughters-in-law, brother, brother’s wife and four sons were arrested by ISIS. “As I know, my daughter-in-law and her three sons were sold by ISIS but I don't know anything about my other son, his wife and their three sons. My brother, Hussein, was killed in the center of Shengal. My daughter was taken captive along with her four sons by ISIS and her three sons were killed in the city of Tal Afar. My daughter's youngest son, Kamyan, was rescued in Rojava and transferred to a Yazidi center. When he returned to Shengal, he did not know even a Kurdish word.”

Mother Qemer and her family members fled to other cities in Southern Kurdistan; however, one of her brothers stayed in Shengal. She told us how her brother and his family members had fled in order not to be taken captive by ISIS. “My brother and his family saw ISIS members on the way to the village of Digurê. He told the driver of the car to turn. When the car was passing through the village, they jumped out. They hid from ISIS for four days until they saw the PKK fighters. If the PKK fighters had not helped them, they would have been killed by ISIS.”

After the freedom fighters opened a humanitarian corridor, Yazidis went to Rojava and the cities of Southern Kurdistan (Iraqi Kurdistan). Many Yazidis have already returned to Shengal since Shengal was liberated from ISIS.

However, many Yazidis still stay in camps. Mother Qemer called on all Yazidis living in camps to “return to your homeland, your villages. Our homeland is the most beautiful place in the world. When we were in camps, all we wanted was to return to Shengal because the Yazidi community cannot exist without Shengal.”

She waits for the return of her daughter, grandchildren

Mother Qemer has been waiting for the return of her daughter and grandchildren for 11 years by wearing white dress and she hopes all Yazidi women and children, who were abducted by ISIS in 2014, will be rescued and all Yazidis people will return to Shengal.