ROJBİN DENİZ

Shengal – Êzidîs have a specific lifestyle… There is a say, “First be a human” and this say tells how Êzidîs are. Every morning, they greet the sun with birds; they turn towards the sun and pray.  They believe that every creature is living and for this reason, they respect every creature. When you take a step in Shengal, you feel a mystery left by Êzidîs’ belief. You are curious, impressed by their belief and you feel their belief. When we walked around the city, we saw Dayê Rewşê Murad, who was born a century ago. She is now 111 years old. Dayê Rewşê has spent her life on the mountains and mountainsides of Shengal. She has spent half of her life on mountains, and the other half in the Shilo Valley.

She is still strong and energetic despite her age

Born in the Guhbel village of Shengal’s Sinunê town, Dayê Rewşê is like a century old plane tree. She smiled when she saw us; she is still strong and energetic despite her age. She invited us to have tea with her. She began to talk about her life.

Dayê Rewşê lost her mother and father when she was a baby and she stayed with her uncle’s wife until she was nine years old.

“I was alone here; I didn’t have my mother, father , or siblings. I stayed with my uncle’s wife. She wasn’t nice to me and one day she kicked me out of the house. Shilo Valley is a valley having roads to mountains and plains. I went to the mountains. I walked a lot and arrived in Berchema. I stayed in Berchema for two years. I was a child, I didn’t have any relatives. Then, I had to get married. I traveled to many places such as Chidale, Werde, Heyalê, Sikîne, Sîme Heste and finally I came Guhbele.”

“We lived in caves”

Dayê Rewşê remembered the old days when they lived in caves; when people were in solidarity with each other, helped each other, when she was happy…

“Before, we lived in caves. We had caves in every valley. Three or four families lived in some of them, sometimes, 10 families lived in a cave. Our animals also lived in the caves with us. Our caves were very big. We organized everything in the caves such as our wedding parties. Each family had sheep. We worked as shepherds, milked the sheep, and cooked bread… We also carried water to our caves. As women, we collected herbs on mountains together and sold them in Shengal.”

“I miss the mountains so much”

But the federal government of Iraq began to build villages on the mountains and planned to take the people living on the mountains to plains. When everyone left the mountains, Dayê Rewşê had to leave the mountains and live in plain but she has never felt happy as she felt on the mountains.

“Then, the Iraqi government began to build houses. It built villages on the mountains. They wrote the villages’ names and gave us a piece of land. We were told, ‘Come and live here instead of living in caves. I was happy in caves; there was no war, no fear, and no anger. We were in solidarity with each other. Everyone was happy. I miss the mountains very much; the life in the mountains was beautiful. What we faced during the edict was painful.”

“Daesh pulled down my house, destroyed my life”

Dayê Rewşê doesn’t remember the dates for this reason she couldn’t tell us what happened when. But she never forgets “the edict”, which was carried out against Êzidîs on August 3, 2014. We visited her old house pulled down by Daesh and she began to tell us;

“The ruins you are seeing were my house. When Deash attacked here, they pulled down my house and destroyed my life. My husband died before the attacks of Daesh. After the edict, we returned to our land but there was nothing left. First, we stayed outside then we began to live in a tent.”

“I become sick after the edict”

Dayê Rewşê looked at the mountains of Shengal and told us, “I become sick after the edict, the pain made me sick.” She stayed in silence for a while and then began to talk again. “I have faced six edicts. This edict (the last edict) was very hard; it was not like the previous ones. I cannot remember very well the edicts. I was a child at that time. I have faced the edicts carried out by Abdul Kerim, Abdullah Qasım, Abdullah Selam, Saddam, Tavra Şeva and the last edict. The last edict was harder than others. We were forced to leave our houses, many people died on the way while going to other places. We lived in camps but we couldn’t live there so we returned our lands.”

“These mountains belong to Êzidîs”

Dayê Rewşê also talked about the Shengal (Sinjar) Agreement signed between the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on October 9, 2020. She is afraid of passing away without seeing how her people live peacefully again. She talked about the agreement and said, “They want to take Shengal and our mountains from us. These mountains belong to Êzidîs, the Êzidîs will not give their mountains to anyone.”