ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - When Barzan awoke to the sound of screams in the early hours of the morning of August 3, 2014, the 13-year-old ran to feed his doves for a final time before fleeing his home, never to return. As Islamic State (ISIS) militants attacked Shingal, he was captured along with around 6,000 members of his Yazidi community, whereupon he was taken into captivity and forced to fight for the so-called caliphate for the remainder of his blighted childhood.
Vian, also a young boy at his time of capture, became a close friend when they met in captivity. Together, the two supported each other through horrific training, frontline military conflict as ISIS child soldiers and, four years later, their escape in 2018 with the help of smugglers.
“We were forced to do everything they said,” Vian recounts in a short documentary film released on Friday by Amnesty International and Fat Rat Films, depicting the unbreakable brotherhood that developed between Vian and Barzan, who survived their horrific captivity under ISIS and now, like other Yazidi survivors, deserve reparations and support to help rebuild their lives.
In one particularly moving scene, the two can be seen comforting each other about the separation from their families - and the pain of missing their deceased mothers, sisters, and fathers, killed by ISIS militants in their ethno-religious genocide. Between 2014 and 2017, ISIS committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and what the UN has called a genocide against the Yazidi community.
Over seven years since ISIS launched their brutal attack, the young men now live in a camp in the Kurdistan Region where the documentary was filmed last year, and where their future is unclear. Support is lacking and they - like so many others - say they struggle to see a future in Iraq.
Speaking in a panel discussion to accompany the launch of the film, Vian and Barzan said they feel they have no rights in Iraq, and had not heard of the 2021 Survivors Law, intended to support ISIS survivors in Iraq.
Sherri Kraham Talabany, president of the Kurdistan Region’s SEED Foundation, urged the Iraqi government to urgently implement the Yazidi Survivors Law, telling the panel that, “Former child soldiers, some of whom are now adults, remain critically underserved.”
“Children are still returning [from captivity]... this is very much an ongoing issue,” she said, adding that SEED has worked with children who had been separated from their mothers by ISIS when they were as young as three and four-years old.
Sareta Ashraph, an international criminal barrister focused on ISIS crimes against the Yazidis and whose work culminated in the UN's decision of genocide, also shared her thoughts on the documentary.
ISIS’ targeting of young boys for recruitment and forcibly killing their male relatives was a particularly cruel experience, she stressed. Those over the age of seven years were removed entirely from their families, Ashraph said, meaning that they were not only new recruits to the so-called caliphate, but also the victims of an erasure and an attack on their Yazidi identity.
Many were forced to convert to Islam. “Outwardly we were acting like them [ISIS], inside though we were holding on to our religion,” Vian says in the film.
Mirza Dinnayi, from Air Bridge Iraq, described in the panel how ISIS systematically indoctrinated young boys; around 1,000 of whom have been released, he said, and at least 1,000 currently remain in captivity.
To date, 3,000 of the abducted remain unaccounted for.
Often when we think of this figure, we think of enslaved women - but a large proportion are former Yazidi child soldiers.
Statistics provided by the Yazidi Rescue Office, approved by the United Nations, estimate that the number of people left in the hands of ISIS is 2,763: 1,293 women and 1,470 men; many of whom were children at the time of capture.
“Former child soldiers are routinely stigmatized, which means their harrowing experiences are frequently kept in the shadows,” Nicolette Waldman, Researcher on Children and Armed Conflict on Amnesty’s Crisis Response team said. “By bravely sharing their own stories so openly, Vian and Barzan have helped shine a light on the struggles that remain for Yazidi former child soldiers today.”
“The Iraqi authorities, their international partners, and the United Nations must ensure that Yazidi former child soldiers have full access to the reparations and assistance to which they are entitled under Iraq’s Yazidi Survivors Law (2021),” she added.
Funded by the Iraqi government, the estimated cost of implementing the law remains unclear but, Waldman told Rudaw English, it is entirely achievable. The beneficiaries of the law are in the thousands, rather than tens of thousands.
“They must also work together to establish a National Action Plan mandating that all current and former child soldiers in Iraq, including Yazidi boys and young men, are reintegrated into society and provided with coordinated, specialized and long-term support.” Waldman said.
Related: Yazidis welcome death of 'driving force' behind ISIS genocide, call for greater support
The Kurdistan Region hosts over half a million internally displaced persons; 30% of whom live in the Region’s 36 camps, suffering from extreme and cruel weather in recent weeks.
Speaking to Rudaw English, Waldman explained that her message to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was to work with the Iraqi government in order to establish this plan to support former child soldiers and assist them to reintegrate into society.
Amnesty has welcomed the new regulations passed by Iraq’s parliament to implement the Yazidi Survivors Law, but continued to warn that significantly more work is required to assist survivors.
A directorate for providing support to Yazidi survivors has been established, but a more proactive approach is needed. Next month will mark a year since the March 2021 law first came into action, and there has been little tangible change to lived experiences.
In addition, there have been many misconceptions over whether former fighters are entitled to support, as this group of survivors had been initially excluded from the draft bill. The law as it stands explicitly accounts for them, and all children who were abducted by ISIS, so former Yazidi child soldiers are fully entitled to assistance. Amnesty advocates for a survivor-led approach, where boys and men feel able to come forward for meaningful support, and is calling on Iraqi authorities, international partners, and the UN, to create an action plan to reintegrate these former child soldiers into society.
In July 2020, Amnesty published a report that documented how Yazidi children who had returned to their families after being held captive by IS were facing a physical and mental health crisis. Authored by Waldman, it that more than half of survivors Amnesty spoke with had not received any form of support.
Many survivors currently in the Kurdistan Region cannot return to Shingal, as Turkish airstrikes plague their homeland, rendering it neither habitable nor sustainable, leaving the security of Yazidis in limbo.
Asked by Rudaw English whether they could one day envision a life for themselves in Shingal, Vian said that three things were required; the safety of the area, the supported reunion of missing family members, and for ISIS militants to be held accountable for their devastating crimes. “It is vital to get rid of the political parties and factions in Shingal,” he added.
For Barzan, the existence of these different groups and parties in Shingal - not to mention the military bombing - render his return a distant possibility. “We don’t know what to do any more,” he said, sadly. “We live in the camps but we cannot return to Shingal.”
Waldman believes that the international community can play a significant role, and must use whatever leverage they can to support the most vulnerable. Amnesty and other advocacy groups are not calling for resettlement, but they are cynically hopeful that by raising the tragic plight of boys and young men who were forcibly conscripted by ISIS, the survivors may - finally - receive a fraction of the support they so urgently deserve.
