‘Come and take your husband’s head’

Gülden AYDIN - QUADIA

Almost half of the Yazidis in the village of Quadia are children. Photo: Murat Şaka/Hürriyet

Yazidi women fleeing from northern Iraq have described to Hürriyet horrific scenes of the genocidal attacks of the militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), while also voicing confidence in ISIL’s ultimate defeat.
 
Some 960 Yazidis, who were attacked by ISIL militants in the Sinjar region on Aug. 3, have taken refuge in the Quadia village in the Duhok province of northern Iraq. The Turkish Red Crescent has provided food and blankets to the refugees in the village.
 
The 250-house village is represented by Kurdish deputy Ziad Hussein, whose grandfather was once awarded by the Vatican for providing shelter for Armenians fleeing massacres in Anatolia in 1915.
 
“I was away in my father's village the day when the massacre happened. I called home the next day. The ISIL terrorist who answered the phone told me: ‘Come and take your husband's head.’ They killed 40 of my relatives. How can I speak now?” Seno, a 20-year-old mother of three children, told Hürriyet in Quadia.
 
Fifty-year-old Nasr said men were beheaded, women were kidnapped and babies, including a 10-month-old, were thrown violently during the attack, which went on for 10 hours. “The people you are seeing here are only those who were able to save their lives,” Nasr noted.
 
Some Yazidis in the village saw a conspiracy behind the massacre. “Arabs called us that night and the YPG [Syrian Kurdish paramilitary force] opened the road. We departed with 30 people in cars. But ISIL ambushed and took away two cars, nine women and two men. We were able to hide only thanks to the darkness," 28-year-old Seve Xamid said. “They trapped us.”
 
Hudeda Sheromynned, 85, was so weak that she could barely stand. She said she had walked 60 km to escape.

“ISIL will collapse and be defeated. We will return to Sinjar. I have this hope,” she said.