ZAKHO, Kurdistan Region – Dakhil Khalaf, a Yezidi-Kurd living at a refugee camp in Kurdistan with his three wives and 34 children, had his plans ruined by the August 2014 ISIS attack on his town near Shingal: the 48-year-old was planning to take a fourth wife.
“I was planning to get married for the fourth time, at the consent of my wives, but I did not manage to make it as ISIS forced us to flee,” he told Rudaw at the Bersevi refugee camp in Zakho, where all 38 family members live in a single tent.
Commenting on his large brood of children, he said, “I know their names. I love them all without favoritism.
God has given them to me since I love kids. I am very comfortable with them and have no problems with my wives.”
Of the 34 children, six are boys, the oldest of the kids was born in 1989 and the youngest two years ago.
But managing such a large family, and life as an internally displaced person since the ISIS attack on the Yezidi town of Shingal, has not been easy.
“We do not have work and there is no salary. Before the arrival of ISIS my children were used to working. But our life is miserable now,” he complained, adding “all of the kids are students except the toddlers. We do not receive a fair share of the oil wealth.”
An estimated 14,000 families live in refugee camps in Zakho, which is in Duhok province.
