KHANKI, Kurdistan Region - Thousands of Yezidis who have escaped to the safety of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq are living in squalid conditions and are desperate to leave the country.
Having escaped massacres at the hands of Islamic State (IS/ISIS) forces and their Arab Sunni neighbors in the Shingal area, survivors express shock, indignation and despair at what they consider an unforgivable betrayal by their fellow Iraqis.
The vast majority of Iraqi Yezidis are now in Kurdistan’s northern Dohuk province, after IS slaughtered, enslaved or forcibly converted thousands to Islam near Shingal.
The IS armies consider practitioners of the ancient Yezidi religion “devil-worshippers,” and have especially targeted the gentle community in northern Iraq.
Most were forced to flee without any belongings, walking for dozens of miles into Syria -- all the while in blistering heat, terrified of further IS attacks -- before they could cross into Kurdistan.
“It wasn’t even IS who did most of the killing, it was our Sunni Arab neighbors,” said Hassan Jindi, a veteran Iraqi Air Force pilot from the Iraq-Iran War. Now in his sixties, Jindi fled with his family through Syria.
“We are surrounded by Arab villages. We looked after these people’s children, and as soon as ISIS appeared they immediately turned against us,” he recounted.
Hassan and his family live in a makeshift camp in this tiny Yezidi town on the eastern banks of the Mosul Dam, only a few kilometers from IS positions. Some 65,000 Yezidi refugees arrived here in a matter of days, overwhelming local residents who barely have enough electricity and drinking water for their own community.
As a truck carrying pots of food drives into the camp, it starts a made frenzy among residents, who chase after it with pales and buckets. The system is first come first served, and many are left angry and empty-handed.
Nearby, a prominent Kurdish NGO, the Barzani Charity Foundation (BCF), has set up a food kitchen, serving about half of Khanki’s refugees. Food supplies have arrived from the UN World Food Programme, but the difficulty lies in actually distributing the food to the thousands of upset and disorganized refugees.
BCF staff struggle to meet the demands of the daily throng of refugees waiting for a hot meal: children arrive with buckets they couldn’t possibly carry if filled; other desperate residents have threatened workers with knives.
“Beyond the chaos, the stories they share are heartbreaking,” BCF employee Rizgar Ubayd told Rudaw. “Mothers who have been forced to leave their babies on the road to survive the long walk to safety. It’s too much.” In 1991, Ubayd himself fled to Turkey with three million Iraqi Kurds, where he witnessed similar scenes.
According to the UN Assistance Mission to Iraq, the BCF distributes two hot meals a day to 121,000 refugees (both Yezidis and Christians) from six centers located in Dohuk province. At one center in nearby Sharya, the more manageable number of refugees means that most have marginally better shelter, living in half-constructed homes, schools, a Yezidi community center and in local’s homes.
In another at Semel, a suburb of Dohuk city, a stream of new arrivals scattered throughout the town means many families are hard to find. The BCF is working with the municipal government to secure land for proper refugee camps, so that they can provide a broader range of services and establish basic sanitation standards.
Although Yezidi townships and local NGOs are doing their best to accommodate the refugees, many Yezidis are eager to leave the country as soon as possible.
“We need the International Organization for Migration to help us get asylum abroad,” said Jalal Dakeel, a young man with burning eyes and a giant blister on his lip from eight days on Shingal mountain. “We are done with this country, done with Iraq. We want to go to Germany, the USA, wherever -- but out of here.”
Ferhan Mahallo Khalil, a former translator for the US army, currently with other refugees in Sharya, pleads to leave the country. He and 27 family members walked 37 kilometers in temperatures of over 40 degrees centigrade, carrying his two children most of the way.
“IS are selling our women and children, raping our women, forcing us to convert and then killing us anyway,” he said, shaking with anger.
“We thank people helping us, like the UN and Barzani Charity Foundation. We can’t thank Obama enough for his airstrikes -- they saved us. But we have to leave. This is not a home for us anymore.”
