Nûjîyan Erhan/JINHA

SHENGAL – As men and women fighters continue the intense urban fighting for the ancient city of Shengal, evacuated after Daesh's femicidal and genocidal attack in August, an army of flowers has recently emerged among the bombed-out buildings of the city, as if in rebuke of Daesh's attempt to destroy life here.

On August 3, 2014, Daesh forces attacked the city of Shengal, historic sacred city of the Êzidî people. City residents were largely unarmed and left defenseless by the Kurdistan Regional Government. The gangs slaughtered thousands of mostly male Shengal residents in the attack and kidnapped over 7,000 women, children and elderly people in the onslaught.

It was a long, cold winter for many Shengal residents, who were scattered to refugee camps every corner of the Middle East and the world in their flight from Shengal. Now, Shengal residents, refusing to abandon the city, have organized themselves into men's and women's self-defense forces (the YBŞ and YPJ Shengal, respectively). The battle to recapture the city has often devolved into intensive street-by-street fighting, in which Daesh forces have used heavy munitions to destroy every trace of life in a city with immense historical and religious significance for the Êzidî people.

Even if the bombed-out buildings and ruins here seem lifeless, not just the people but the flowers have risen up against the attempt to destroy life in Shengal. The recent heat wave has encouraged a riot of flowers popping up throughout the ruins—each one like an individual defender of the ancient city.

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