Ibrahim

About a year or six months before the genocide, I was doing my last year of secondary school.

The last year of secondary is a difficult time at any time, let alone when the situation in the country is unstable. Our situation as Yazidis was even worse especially those of us who lived south of Sinjar Mountain as we were subjected to a series of explosions in 2007 committed by Al-Qaida, which are also considered as genocide.

Our families would always advise us or caution us to always be careful when traveling to other areas saying that we had enemies everywhere. I didn’t go out of our sub-district and didn’t know why other people hated us.

It was always on my mind even when I was studying.

I told myself that when I go to college or when I see an Arab person, I will ask why they hate us when we never wronged them.

We are peaceful people.

We always lived in fear but nevertheless we had dreams and planned for the future. Life was very good and we never expected something would happen that would make us hate humanity.

A month and a half or so before the genocide, we were suffering a lot because my father had a heart condition (hole in the heart). I stopped going to college and they allowed me to postpone my exams, so that I could help him.

We wanted to get him to a good doctor, but it was too complicated to get him to Mosul or Kurdistan at that time because of his condition. We tried hard and used our connections until we managed to get him to a hospital in Erbil. Around two weeks before the genocide, the doctors said there was no hope and my brother brought him back home.

This is my father's grave, he passed away a few days later after returning back from hospital. I was devastated and told myself that I can’t go on. The rest of my family were the same, but my mother gave me strength. It was my father’s wish that we don’t give up especially given that we are a minority. 

We had to continue being strong, not for ourselves but because we had people around us who depended on us.

We are peaceful people, but my brother had to carry a weapon and guard at a checkpoint not knowing who he was going to encounter. I took food for fighters sometimes and they would tell me this genocide is happening just because we are Yazidis.

I have thousands of questions about the reason why we were targeted, especially because we were in an area that doesn’t have any natural resources.

This led me to contemplate.

I had two big losses; I lost the head of the family (my father) and also a genocide happened based on our religious identity.

I still don’t know how to describe what has happened to us Yazidis. It was something strange and colossal. But I can say that we, the Yazidi people, are the strongest.

The situation was dire, we were running out of water, and without it no one survives.  The head of our tribe said: 'May God protect us, let’s leave.'

 The mountain side where we were is very steep and extremely difficult to climb, and it is full of cliffs. Anyone who falls while climbing will certainly die.  There were many of us, some people that were not even from our neighbourhood. We prepared ourselves into groups and we managed to bring a tractor. We took essentials like food and water and headed towards the top of the mountain.

We sent the first group to one of the mountain’s valleys. Daesh were watching the mountain and they spotted them as they went there. It was a difficult situation but we had to send them lest they die of thirst. We prepared for a fight and we were ready to sacrifice ourselves to allow people to flee.

I was with the second group. Young men like me stayed until everyone else was able to get to safety. It was a very difficult and unforgettable situation, elderly people could not climb and everyone tried to save themselves and their families.

I only managed to help my mother, but I could not help anyone else. I managed to get my mother to the summit, but I was exhausted and collapsed by then. Some of the men remained at the base of the mountain and said they would stay there to fight Daesh if they would attack.

The journey was very difficult. One person turned around and said he was going to die. He was extremely exhausted but the people around him encouraged him to continue climbing. I was exhausted too and my mother gave me a biscuit. Our mothers always keep things for hard times! It is impossible to find a mother here who doesn’t.

We prepared the place a bit for the ill and elderly to rest. We saw unbearable suffering during those three days. We were eight siblings and we would all gather around our mother to keep her warm because she was sick and there were no sheets or blankets.

Then we ran out of water.

We headed to Karse. Karse village is very well known here. It is known for its ability to stand in enemy’s face, and also for its tobacco.

My brother-in-law’s relatives were in Karse, he called me and asked how the situation was, and I told him that it couldn’t have been more difficult. He told me he had water and to send one person from each family.

He said only bring those who have energy, to not take any weak men, because if they got exhausted it would be a real problem.

We set off at around 4am or 5am, my sister insisted on joining us to help too, even though my mother told her it was difficult for her. It was the first time I had ever been in that area. Here in Iraq, there is no such thing as hiking. It was extremely cold and windy. We met a shepherd there who brought a piece of waxed cloth, which helped a lot. My sister, brother-in-law, and I took a short rest. There were seven of us using only one blanket.

The planes were flying non-stop, supposedly to help us; but no one knew what was going on. We took a little nap and did not sleep so we decided to continue down the mountain because the situation was getting worse and it was bitterly cold.

There was also a telecommunication tower there so we had a network connection and we managed to make calls. But there was also little fuel available. Everyone kept asking how much fuel was left in that tower.

I went up and down that mountain summit several times. I have acrophobia but I wasn’t giving my phobia much attention. My only concern was to help my family and others, to the extent that I forgot to drink water sometimes.

It was the same for most people who came from the south of the mountain, but it was a bit different for people in the north.

There were Yazidi fighters in Karse who were defending people. My brother-in-law described a planned entrapment of our people, they were surrounded from all sides by Daesh. He said that in ten days they will either have to surrender or Daesh will take over and kill everyone. They were running out of ammunition and they only had light weapons. I was very worried, because all my concern was how to help my family. But now I knew that, this way, we all are going to die in a few days.

We were near a figs tree grove. There are figs tree groves all over the mountain, but that spot is famous for its fine weather. My brothers and I couldn’t eat at all, because we were trying to help as many people as possible and my sister was crying all the time. My sister split a piece of biscuit and gave me half. I took it and walked away a bit, then I cried intensely, I couldn’t control my tears. Then when I went back to take water for the Yazidi fighters, everyone gave me words of encouragement and told me the youth are our hope for everyone.

One elderly man who was lying on the roof of the house told us not to give up and that we are doing the greatest sacrifice anyone could give.

This was day five. We knew our fuel, water and food would not last us for more than five or seven more days and we needed to make a decision whether to surrender or survive somehow differently. The provincial council member who had connections told me to assist the Iraqi Air Forces.

The Iraqi Air Force gave him a UK-based number and told him that they are the only allies who could help. We had no idea what kind of help they could provide, how, and when all was unknown. Our situation was beyond difficult.

It wasn’t for another two days until we managed to contact the UK number that we heard a helicopter. One Iraqi who was based in the area had a pair of binoculars and at around 4am he said he can see the helicopter shooting at Daesh controlled areas. By that time, there were no Yazidis in Sinjar except for those captured; there were only Daesh members.

We felt extremely helpless because we were expecting help to arrive by now. The third day we contacted the UK number again, and they said to notify everyone that they will be airdropping aid. There were so many people and we could not get the word to everyone. We waited for hours for the aid to be airdropped. My younger brother had a little daughter, we ran out of milk for her. We asked around but no one had any, people said if we give children figs they will not die. We didn’t have an alternative, so we gave her figs. But after an hour or two, she had a bad allergic reaction. We had no antihistamine with us. I could not bear the situation and what my family was going through.

Then I heard the helicopters, and I believe there were four of them. All of them dropped the aid at once. This was disastrous and a huge mistake. We drew a help sign with wheat so that they could drop the aid in a place we had prepared for softer landing. We heard the parachutes breaking and everyone rushed towards the airdrop from the first helicopter and people got crushed by the next packages that were coming down. They were starving and dying of thirst so they rushed towards the parcels. Above all the misery and horrors that we saw, many families died from the airdrops. The statistics later revealed that three big families were crushed under the heavy airdrops. A pregnant woman was among those.

The drop came on the ninth day and the help we received was all essentials. We had only a couple more days to find a better solution, because the tower that provided us network was about to run out of fuel. We were lacking water as well. There are two springs in the mountain but they were not enough for everyone. One spring was very far away from us and the other one was close and we call it Da’adosh spring . It is used to water tobacco. Some divided the essentials between everyone equally so no one takes more than others.

Then we were relieved a bit because we calculated that we could survive in the mountain for about fifteen more days on this aid. We called for updates but there were none. They said they would call in the morning if there was anything new.

He also said there was a place in Karse where they distribute aid, so I went there and they told me I could take a fifty kilograms of flour bag, so I went without hesitation. I didn’t even let anyone of my family know about this. I asked them for food and water, and also asked if we will run out of everything in two days. One responded saying: 'No, this is not true. No one can do anything to you now, we will create a safe passage for you all.'

I was told that they would take people to safety in groups. They said that everyone must leave for safety because brutal battles were going to take place and many could die.

But what I was advised with before was not to leave the mountain, because it is our only shelter. We were in a difficult situation. We either had to take our families and go as directed or stay in the mountain. The elders gathered to make a decision and they decided that the ill would go and the rest of us would stay. As we were making up our minds, people already started leaving towards the safe passage.

The second day, my uncle decided that we should also go, because everyone was leaving. It appeared that everything that was happening around us was a plan to eradicate the Yazidis. The political parties will only do whatever suites their interests and so defending our religion would go in vain if we didn’t protect ourselves. So we decided to leave.

The plan was to walk for half a day to reach the trucks. They said that some people from Khanke had volunteered to send the trucks and take us to safety.

We didn’t know which path we were taking and where we were going. I was not familiar with the north of the mountain area. We could hear gunfire and the situation was chaotic. People who could not keep walking were left behind. No one was able to help them. There is nothing harder than losing a family member, but some had to be left behind. Many were crying, dying slowly of starvation, and exhaustion.

But when we got there, only one truck arrived and there were many people! People were arriving from all over the Yazidi areas. We decided that men and young children who can walk should stay and the women and others should go. But some of them refused and said that we should send an adult with each family because we could never know where they were going to and what they could face. Personally, I was ready for everything and would not care about myself and that was the case for all men there.