Noori

I would like to start my story with what happened a few months before the genocide. It was the 26^th of March 2014. This was the story I told with my map drawing in the workshops we did for phase 1 of the Ruptured Atlas project.

This story is very much connected to this question I always had, which is: where are the world’s borders?

I was with four or maybe five of my friends, we were around 17 or 18 at the time.

We went up the mountain (Sinjar Mountain) heading towards Sheikh Mand temple, meaning "the protector". We usually go there when there is a religious event or Eid or any celebration.

We headed to the mountain on foot. It is about one and a half to two hours walk, we had taken with us things to sit on and some food.

There was a man, who we couldn’t identify, walking behind us. With our teenager ways of thinking , we all thought he was following us and what are we going to do about it? We decided to walk slowly so that he can pass us by. Luckily he was just minding his own business.

All the roads up to that point are predominantly created for cars. But we decided to walk instead of getting in a car. We wanted to take in the nature. It is beautiful around there.

We reached a big rock which is where we decided to sit and rest

We decided to get our picnic out. We were all Yazidi boys who were raised to believe in the Yazidi faith, but one of our friends had a little bit more faith than us. We were preparing the food (here on the map you see I drew a saltshaker), and we ran out of salt. So we started looking everywhere for salt, then that friend of ours who had more faith than us, found a plastic bag with salt inside. This is what a lot of people did, when they finish from their picnic but have leftover of water or anything useful, they used to bury it around just in case someone else need it in the future. He said to us, see if you have a clear conscience you get what you are looking for.

On the 3^rd of August, we woke up in the morning, it was nearly normal, but we knew about the massacre that had taken place in the south of the mountain. It was around 8:30am and we were still deliberating about what to do. At the time, I had a Facebook account, so I decided to contact a friend of mine who was in Gohbal (a residential complex to the east of the Mountain, in Snuny). I asked him what’s happening there, he said they were fleeing the complex and he was advising us to flee too, there is no hope he said. At 9:20am, I posted on Facebook that we are leaving too. About 9:30am we decided to leave. We had no car. It was us (the family) and my uncles and cousins, all went on foot heading towards the mountain. We had very little on us, supply for one day perhaps. We thought we will be out for one day and then we can return. Once we crossed over the last road in the village, there is a main road and after that it is empty landscape between there and the mountain.

As we were crossing the road that sits between the village and the mountain, I saw the army that was withdrawing. One of them was on a military vehicle who passed by us and he shouted, run, escape with your life, they (Daesh) are headed towards you. I felt petrified and let down by this incident that I will never forget, how come someone who has the capacity to defend civilians, runs away and leaves them to their assassins (Daesh).

We headed towards Sheikh Mand temple and we saw a large number of people, some on foot and others in cars filled to their rims with people. I went with my sister and other relatives, we ended up sitting in a small patch of land that my family used for farming. We saw waves of people heading towards us.

We spent the night and day in the mountain and we knew we couldn't return just yet because those who left after us told us that it is still not safe to return.

Sinjar mountain is one big mountain with a dip that is like a wide flat valley and then another smaller mountain parallel to the main one. There are several passes that act as entrances to the mountain. Towards Sheikh Mand temple, there is a pass wide enough for one car to pass through. Men were taking shifts to protect this entrance. The north side of the mountain has more temples so many of the people fleeing from all over Sinjar region were heading there.

The genocide took place in the hottest month of the year in Iraq especially in the morning and afternoon. But at night, the temperature plummets down. We had not come prepared with covers and blankets. I had a piece of cardboard, I took it and found a corner in the deserted land to shelter.

But we struggled in the middle of the night as temperatures plummeted further, my uncle suggested that we dig a hole in the ground and cover ourselves to get some warmth. It was like we were digging our own graves. We could only sleep from exhaustion. We were around 40 people, all relatives. We remained there for a week.

We ran out of food. People who brought their sheep with them started giving out their sheep for people to cook and eat. We had wheat which we boiled and ate. There was very small well that belonged to a local family (Avdi’s Family), without their help we would have died from thirst.

Despite the hardship people helped each other. Especially those who came from the south of the mountain who had far worse experiences than we had. They needed more help especially their children and elderly. There are so many incidents and desperate decisions that people had to make. Rumours of ISIS progressing into the mountain used to send more anxiety in people.

After a week, we started to see humanitarian helicopters dropping aid. Despite this, lots of people died. The food parcels were hitting the rocks on the mountain and shattering, bottles of water were braking into pieces. We were near two temples close to one another, Sheikh Mand and Amadin. Behind these two temples, there is a flat piece of land. We lit fire there to create more of an even flat surface to allow helicopters to drop aid supplies there.

What struck me is that I think people had no comprehension of what was happening. I think people lost their logical thinking ability. They were all traumatised. The minute they heard the helicopter hovering on top of that patch of land, everyone runs towards the helicopter and then aid can’t be dropped because otherwise it will squash people. Helicopters were trying their best to send messages to the people to stop them from running towards it but people were desperate.

When they opened the route for us, slowly but surely people started leaving the mountain heading towards Kurdistan. We saw lots of cars and people walking. There were lots of children on the side of the road crying, no one knows where their parents are, elderly people too were on the side of the road. When cars passed by and we see they had lots of bedding, people stopped it and swapped walking people and children with bedding and so on. I remember on that day we walked for eight straight hours, we only stopped when we found a farm along the way to pick up a few things to eat.

I recall walking on my own, I don’t think I stopped to check where my family were. I was carrying a bottle of water; from the heat the water was so hot it didn’t feel nourishing to drink from it. I also gave small children and women some of that water.

We just needed to reach the border which was about two hours walk away. I remember seeing people lying on the side of the road who couldn’t walk anymore. Cars that were passing by were so overloaded, even on the roof of the car people were hanging for their dear life.

When we crossed the Iraqi-Syrian border there were big water tanks and I saw lots of people filling up their bottles and containers and continued to walk, although there were people who were getting water and returning back for their family and relatives, but I didn’t look back. I felt slight relief.

There were trucks that belong to People’s Defence Units (YPG) who came to help people who couldn’t walk anymore. They took them from the border and into the crossing back into Kurdistan Iraq. But when we got there it was night and it was not safe to cross back into Iraq. So my family and I had to get onto one of the trucks to be taken into Kurdistan.

There were tens of trucks full of food and supplies as well as people. Those who had their own cars were passing us by and people like us without cars had to wait for the trucks to take us into Iraq. No one was allowed to just walk across the border into Kurdistan Iraq. At that crossing into Kurdistan, people started checking on each other as if they have started to understand what was going on and the events of what’s happened started to sink in.

At night the cold weather prevented us from sleeping. We were given blankets but they weren’t enough so we decided to put a camp fire on and people sat around unable to sleep. I started checking on my family. I found them all ok. 

The trucks took us to Simmel near Duhok, near Sharya, which is where our camp ended up being.

When we got to Simmel, they took us to a school building. It was a two story building, each story with four classrooms, each classroom housed about two or three families. There were so many of us in one building. It was very difficult to live like this with close proximity to other families you might not know that well. 

In that school, we sort of agreed amongst ourselves, that the young men will sleep outside in the school yard and women and children and elderly sleep in the classrooms. We stayed there for three months. 

It was a very difficult time. Nevertheless, when we arrived in Simmel, we felt much better. 

I really liked Simmel. It was quiet and calm and the local people looked after us. The majority of people in Simmel are Kurdish and there were also Christians and very few Yazidis. There was a Mosque nearby where the Imam announced in the loud speaker for locals to look after us as much as they can and donate whatever they can.  He said, “Help and look after your brothers. They (Yazidis) are people of your country too”. 

I don’t think once I heard this word that tend to disturb Yazidis (without mentioning it).

We used to receive food through the Barazani Charity Foundation (BCF) because there was nowhere to cook in the school. The school’s bathrooms were turned into separate bathrooms for men and women. After that, people started leaving the school to find better places to live. Men started finding day labour jobs.

I recall an incident that I will never forget, because of the crowdedness inside the classrooms, I spent the majority of my time outside the school gate. Just sitting there contemplating life.

A really nice car stopped by with a middle-aged man driving, he lowered the window and asked if I was exhausted, I said yes, so he said: "Get in the car with me". I got in the car without thinking. He took me to his house and asked his wife to bring me fresh clothes. He mentioned a name, I can’t remember but it sounded like he was speaking about his son, and he directed me to the bathroom. It was not only my first experience leaving my village and going into a city, but also to see the bathroom was so big and had a shower. I took a shower and wore the fresh clothes. I got out of the shower and they invited me into their dining table which was like a picture, filled with all kinds of food. I saw the food and didn’t know what to do. I ate a bit, I wasn’t hungry but he kept on asking if I would like to eat more. When I said I am satisfied, he said, he will take me back. He gave me a bag with some clothes and other items and took me back to the school.

Until now, I have no idea who he is. I don’t think he said and I don’t remember asking and I don’t remember where he lives either. The only question I remember he asked me was: "Are you one of the forcibly displaced people?" I said, yes. Until this day I remember this incident. He was super kind Kurdish man.