Zehra Doğan – JINHA

DUHOK - Images of the hopeless suffering of the people of Shengal made international news in August, when Daesh launched its attack on the Êzîdî city in Northern Iraq. Seven months later, the story of the captured Êzîdî women's experience, from their suffering to their resistance, is less widely told. This series explores the experiences and struggles of Êzîdî women living in the Iraqi city of Duhok; the city of Dêrik, in Rojava; and in Shengal itself.

So far, 500 women have escaped from Daesh one by one, through their own devices. In addition, women living in Shengal are engaged in building a system of grassroots representation and self-defense forces. They say they want to ensure that they never see another attack like this, the latest in a long history of massacres of the Êzîdîs.

According to official statistics, Daesh members abducted more than 7,000 women and children in the attacks on Shengal (also known as Sinjar) that began August 3. The women continue to be sold in slave markets that have been set up in a number of towns in Syria, some in Daesh-controlled towns in Iraq and Syria, others as far afield as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The largest market is in the Syrian city of Rakka, in Daesh-controlled territory.

The Kurdistan Regional Government has drawn criticism for leaving Shengal exposed to massacre. In summer 2014, Daesh was on the rampage, with the stated intention of killing and enslaving any religious groups like the Êzîdîs in their path. The ruling KDP, in spite of the resources of decades of U.S. financial and military support, took next to no military precautions in the area.

The only thing that stopped a larger massacre was an operation by fighters affiliated with the PKK—listed as a terrorist organization by Western countries. Now, speaking to Êzîdî women is difficult, with officials in Zaxo (Zakho), Hewler (Erbil) and Sulaymaniyah denying all requests for access.

We manage to obtain an address in Duhok and head out on a cold winter day. It rains the entire way, with the heater in our car barely keeping us warm. We find ourselves at a building under construction, where migrants from Shengal live ten families to a floor.

We head up to the second floor, passing through the blanket hung for a door. Between unplastered walls on one side and plastic sheeting set up to block the wind on another, we sit down by a gas stove. It barely warms the air around it, let alone the freezing room.

24-year-old Z.X., 20-year-old H.X. and 17-year-old W.X. live here with their mothers and a 12-year-old brother. Their fathers, brothers, uncles and cousins have all been killed. Although the women escaped three months ago, several of their sisters are still in Daesh captivity.

The women, who say they have seen no rehabilitation and no aid efforts, sit silently. Finally Z.X. begins to speak.

"I know why you came," she says, and begans to describe the day in August when she was taken captive.

"That day, we heard that Daesh was attacking," says Z.X. "My father put us in the car at dawn and we headed for the Shengal mountains. On the way, we stopped at my uncle's village. We were going to eat lunch there and then take my uncle's family with us and flee.

"But it didn't happen like we wanted. Before long Daesh surrounded us and started firing on the house." Z.X.'s father tried to defend the house, but the attackers overwhelmed them. They locked the 27 men inside and brought the women and children outside, where they separated them into two groups.

The gang members herded the 23 young women and women who had been married less than three years into their vehicles. They poured gasoline over the remaining 12 small children and older women, including Z.X.'s mother and aunt.

"They were about to burn the group my mother was in when the phone rang," says Z.X. "Someone said, 'bring the young ones to Siba Sheykh Khidir village and come back to burn the rest.'" In the time it took Daesh to drive them to the village and return, Z.X.'s mother and the other women managed to escape. But they could not free the men locked in the house, who were beheaded. One cousin survived by hiding under his own father's corpse.

The young women were transported to the village of Baaj, where they were imprisoned in a basement with 500 other women and girls. They had no idea what time of day it was. The women waited for two hours while Daesh members separated them into virgins and non-virgins and selected some to be taken to Mosul to sell. The gang members took away Z.X.'s sisters and cousin, but left Z.X. behind to care for her pregnant cousin.

"There were 300 of us there in Baaj. Every day was filled with beatings—whether we did what they said or not." One day the Daesh commanders, called "amirs," came to the village. One of the amirs picked Z.X.'s friend, Cilan, 24, for himself. Cilan locked herself in the bathroom and killed herself.

After eight days in Baaj, 27 of the women were taken to the village of Til Kasir, an exchange point for hundreds of women and children—many of them between six and nine years old. Z.X. changed hands a number of times, first cooking for a Daesh amir in Til Kasir and his women and children. Then she was sold to someone in Verdiye village, near Tel Azir, who beat her daily for three days. The amir asked for her back because he needed to cook for some girls he had bought, one of them a seven-year-old deaf girl who he frequently raped.

"I stayed with the girls for five days. After that, an amir took me. He tied my hands, covered my mouth and eyes and raped me on the way. Then he called his wife and said he'd chosen a woman and wanted to bring her home. When his wife didn't accept it, he had to take me back."

Z.X. stayed for a time with the six- and nine-year-old sisters of her friend Cilan, who had killed herself. Next, a man took away Z.X. and three young girls. He claimed he would take them back to Shengal, but never did. One night a man came to take away Ğali, 12 and Şaha, 14.

"They told me 'they're sleeping in our bed tonight.' I didn't accept this. So they tied my hands and feet. Two Daesh men, named Abu Kerem and Abu Abbas, beat me for hours. I still can't walk properly," she says. She also suffered a head wound. Over the course of the night, she had to listen to the young girls' screams. The girls were taken away to Mosul the next morning.

"I still haven't heard from them," says Z.X.

"My friend Nazdar, who's 15 years old, became mentally unstable from the rape. There was a nine-year-old girl named Şilan who they raped repeatedly, saying they were giving her Qur'an lessons. My friend didn't want to leave her alone." For three days, the men locked Şilan into a room, bound her hands and raped her.

"They sold her to a Syrian in Mosul. I also haven't heard from her.

"I was sold again and I started looking after children once again." The children she cared for were frequently raped. "In the house I was in, they raped two deaf girls, seven and eight years old. When the girls' cousin resisted, they beat her and broke her skull in two places," said Z.X.

"Later they took me and a 13-year-old girl to a place with other children. They were always telling us, 'we're going to take you to Saudi Arabia and Syria to sell you.' I couldn't take this and I started trying to figure out ways to escape. I don't know how but I found a way and I tried it. I took the 13-year-old girl with me. I couldn't take the rest. They stayed behind.

"We walked until we came to a house. The people there took us in, but in the morning they put us out on the street, saying 'they'll kill us.'" The two walked through the streets for two days without food or water until they reached the group led by Qasim Şeşo, commander of the Shengal Defense Units.

"I still can't believe those days are behind me. Just think, every day they were mixing things into our water and forcing us to drink it. They tortured us with cold water.

"Recently a friend of mine called me and said they were in Tal Afar. I know very clearly that women are right now being sold in Tal Afar, Baaj, Aseyba, Rabia, Shengal, Kocho, Tel Azer, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and especially in Rakka, in Syria," says Z.X., listing locations mainly in Nineveh Province.

She recalls that virgins went for $2,500. "A lot of women said they were pregnant and managed not to be sold. Later they stopped believing this and started giving them urine tests. But there are hundreds of pregnant women. Some of them would use their urine for other women's tests to stop them from being sold.

"I was sold nearly 30 times, once for $700, sometimes for as little as ten dollars. It was very painful to be in their hands. My sisters are still in Syria and we can't protect them. No matter how many times my sister escapes, they always manage to catch her. They beat her and rape her every day.

"I saw women burn themselves alive. There were three- and six-year-old children being raped. I thought about killing myself a few times but when I saw the children there, I didn't want to leave them alone. I'm still in shock. I can't seem to get over it."

The room falls silent for a long time. Finally, Z.X. asks, "Do you want some tea?"

20-year-old H.X. begins to speak, rubbing her hands together and looking at the floor. We are struck by the shame of being the latest in a long line of groups to come to this place to ask her to relive this traumatic experience, while doing nothing to help. But we listen quietly.

"You understand, right? They cut off my father's head," says H.X. "I stayed in Baaj for 10 days with my older sister and three of my younger sisters. Then they separated us, and took me and one of my sisters away to Mosul.

"We were very scared. There were around 500 of us. They forced us to make the testimony [of Islamic faith]. They beat the ones who didn't." The Daesh gangs bound their hands and separated them into groups of 30 to be sold en masse. The buyer would then sell them off individually in the market.

"I can't remember how many times I was sold. Lots of times. They sold me in Syria, Baaj, Shengal, Tal Afar and Mosul. They would sell us really cheaply," says H.X. First she was sold to an Islamic religious leader, where she stayed for three months.

"My sister and my cousin were also sold to him and he raped us. Then he gave us to his friends. They picked which one they would get by flipping a coin to see who got to pick first.

"They were very bad days. What else could they be when they were filled with grief, beatings and rape? We were spending the days being beaten by people who owned us against our will. They addressed us as 'infidel.'

"When we were in their hands we felt totally desperate, like we were dead. They sold me to a very old man. He died before he could rape me. Then they sold me to someone else.…

"One day there was an airstrike. The person who had bought me died in the airstrike. Thanks to this, I was able to escape. I put on a long black robe and ran barefoot as fast as I could. That was how I managed to escape."

 The only one left who hasn't spoken is 17-year-old W.X. "She hasn't spoken since she was rescued. She doesn't talk," the others explain. But suddenly W. gets up and sits down next to us.

"I want to talk too," she says.

"They took me away from my sisters. I was really scared; I’m still scared. I was in Mosul watching sales happen in the market every day. They sold a 10-year-old girl I was with to a 50-year-old man. The child was screaming and crying. Everything was terrible." W. falls silent and started biting her nails.

"Don't speak if you don't want to," we say. But she doesn't listen.

"They picked me by drawing lots. They took my older sister the same way. I didn't want to go but they dragged me away, beating me. A man took me to Mosul and there was no one in the house. On the second day, they brought my older sister and a friend of mine."

A 45-year-old man repeatedly bound her hands and raped her, she says. She stayed two months in the house, where mostly girls were kept. She could hear a 10-year-old girl being raped by an older man every night.

"I tried to escape many times, but I couldn't succeed," she says. "My life in Shengal was really nice. I went to school. I had dreams. I had my father. Now I don't have him. I don't have my dreams. I don't have school.

"Psychologically, I don't feel good at all. I hate all men who look like them. I have nightmares every night that I'm being raped and that they'll come abduct me again. I'm scared just talking about them. I'm so scared."

W.X. falls silent and bites her nails for a few moments. Then she raises her hand and starts to smile, and then to laugh.

(fk/cm)