{"id":32467,"date":"2019-02-19T10:03:47","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T10:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32467"},"modified":"2019-02-19T10:03:47","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T10:03:47","slug":"for-yazidi-survivors-of-daesh-killings-the-nightmares-go-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32467","title":{"rendered":"For Yazidi survivors of Daesh killings, the nightmares go on"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nSINJAR, Iraq: Ever since Daesh visited death and destruction on their villages in northern Iraq nearly five years ago, Yazidis Daoud Ibrahim and Kocher Hassan have had trouble sleeping.
For Hassan, 39, who was captured, it is her three missing children, and three years of imprisonment at the hands of the extremist group.
For Ibrahim, 42, who escaped, it is the mass grave that he returned to find on his ravaged land.
\u201cThey burnt one house down, blew up the other, they torched the olive trees two three times…There is nothing left,\u201d the father of eight told Reuters.
More than 3,000 other members of their minority sect were killed in 2014 in an onslaught that the United Nations described as genocidal.
Ibrahim and Hassan lived to tell of their suffering, but like other survivors, they have not moved on.
She will never set foot in her village of Rambousi again. \u201cMy sons built that house. I can\u2019t go back without them…Their school books are still there, their clothes,\u201d she said.
\u2019They want to be buried\u2019<\/strong>
As US President Donald Trump prepares to announce the demise of the extremist group in Syria and Iraq, UN data suggests many of those it displaced in the latter country have, like Hassan, not returned home.
Meanwhile, Ibrahim and his family live in a barn next to the pile of rubble that was once their home. He grows wheat because the olive trees will need years to grow again. No one is helping him rebuild, so he is doing it himself, brick by brick.
\u201cLife is bad. There is no aid,\u201d he said sitting on the edge of the collapsed roof which he frequently rummages under to find lost belongings. On this day, it was scarves, baby clothes and a photo album.
\u201cEvery day that I see this mass grave I get ten more grey hairs,\u201d he said.
The grave, discovered in 2015 just outside nearby Sinjar city, contains the remains of more than 70 elderly women from the village of Kocho, residents say.
\u201cI hear the cries of their spirits at the end of the night. They want to be buried, but the government won\u2019t remove their remains.\u201d They and their kin also want justice, Ibrahim adds.
When the militants came, thousands of Yazidis fled on foot toward Sinjar mountain. More than four years later, some 2,500 families \u2014 including Hassan and five of her daughters \u2014 still live in the tents that are scattered along the hills that weave their way toward the summit.
The grass is green on the meadows where children run after sheep and the women pick wild herbs.
But the peaceful setting masks deep-seated fears about the past and the future.
Grateful for the sun<\/strong>
Until a year and a half ago, Hassan and five of her children were kept in an underground prison in Raqqa with little food and in constant fear of torture.
She doesn\u2019t know why Islamic State freed her and the girls, then aged one to six, and hasn\u2019t learnt the fate of the three remaining children: two boys Fares and Firas, who would be 23 and 19 now, and Aveen, a girl who would be 13.
There is no electricity or running water in the camp where they live today. She doesn\u2019t remember when her children last ate fruit. \u201cLife here is very difficult but I thank God that we are able to see the sun,\u201d she said.
During the day, her children go to school and are happy, but at night \u201cthey are afraid of their own shadow,\u201d and she herself has nightmares.
\u201cLast night, I dreamt they were slaughtering my child,\u201d she said.
Mahmoud Khalaf, her husband, says Islamic State not only destroyed their livelihoods. The group broke the trust between Yazidis and the communities of different faiths and ethnicities they had long lived alongside.
\u201cThere is no protection. Those who killed us and held us captive and tormented us have returned to their villages,\u201d Khalaf, 40, said referring to the neighboring Sunni Arab villages who the Yazidis say conspired with the militants.
\u201cWe have no choice but to stay here…They are stronger than us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SINJAR, Iraq: Ever since Daesh visited death and destruction on their villages in northern Iraq nearly five years ago, Yazidis Daoud Ibrahim and Kocher Hassan have had trouble sleeping.For Hassan, 39, who was captured, it is her three missing children, and three years of imprisonment at the hands of the extremist group.For Ibrahim, 42, who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":32468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}