The disaster will not stop. Not in the minds of those who have suffered. Not in the minds of the nearly 2000 jesidischen children were able to return after their liberation from slavery in the so-called “Islamic state” back to their families. With their experience of humiliation, rape, abuse, and brainwashing these children and young people are largely left alone, criticized a study by Amnesty International, released shortly before the sixth anniversary of the genocide of the Yazidis.
“We were focused because of the pictures of the enslavement, the rape of women, mass executions very much on the adults,” confirms self-critical Professor Jan Ilhan Kizilhan, compared to the DW. “The children are forgotten from my point of view is right or `by the way, has been treated”.
Kizilhan is a psychiatrist, directs the center for intercultural psychosomatics, in the South of Germany. He has been in discussions with thousands of people that were in the hands of the IS, supported in Northern Iraq, the training of psychotherapists. Because “there are not enough psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and Doctors, who can dedicate themselves to this large number of traumatized adults and children,” says Kizilhan, who was also involved in the Amnesty report.
This study is in the Amnesty abundantly clear how desperately these children and young people in need of help. It is based on dozens of Interviews with girls and boys, the tortured during their IS-captivity, exploited, or to fight with the weapon were forced.
Countless times as a slave
sold To the public, comes word that the 14-year-old Randa, who are told examples of their history, for example. Five years of captivity, when IS she survived. As a slave she was sold so often that they no longer can even remember the exact number. Finally, she ended up with a man who forced the child to the marriage. When she was finally liberated after the battle of Baghouz of Kurdish fighters, didn’t want Randa to first home. “The IS has always told us: If you return to your family, to bring them to you, because she the Muslims are.”
Exactly 1,041 girl in the ethno-religious jesidischen minority have been freed, according to the Kurdish regional government in Dohuk in February 2020 IS-captivity. Many have experienced sexual violence in a brutal Form, as Randa. This girl has been watching a psychiatrist Kizilhan, “have been broken in your intimacy, in your Psyche so that you have any contact to men fear, even in front of their own fathers and brothers.”
Fight for the IS or die
The boy fared no better. Almost half was abused as child soldiers. In the Amnesty report, Sahir tells his story. A history of the permanent shock, also with cables and plastic pipes, Hunger and thirst, the most serious abuse. Sahir was trained in weapons and under death threats forced to Fight. “I fought to survive,” he was quoted by the report.
After his liberation Sahir has no support from any quarter, he gives to the Protocol. Urgently he wants psychological support. “What I’m looking for is someone who cares for me and kind of support, says to me: ‘I’m here for You’. But I haven’t found it, ” says the Boy. Help Sahir wishes for other Survivors. Many are also physically injured. Some parts of the body such as arms or legs missing, or you would still be missile parts in their bodies.
“is entered During the nightmare of their past in the Background, the needs of these children,” stresses the Deputy head of Amnesty’s crisis response team, Matt Wells. “The physical and mental health of these children must be prioritised in the coming years, if they are to be fully integrated into their families and societies,” insists Wells.
Amnesty international has added to its report a list of recommendations that both the Iraqi and Kurdish authorities as well as to the international community. In addition to the demands for education for the children, according to the identity documents, after acceptance of the children of women raped by the jesidische municipality is prominently advertised for the legal processing of the IS-a crime. Something also Sahir is important: “Without justice, nothing is moving forward”.
“prisoners in no man’s land”
the Jesidin Düzen Tekkal, highlights the legal processing of terror was “a sort of balm for the tortured souls”. The journalist is as the founder of the charity organization “Hawar.Help” regularly in the North of Iraq and has spoken with the surviving children of the IS-terror. In spite of liberation, these were not free-still “and especially not protected,” explains Tekkal towards the DW. “We talk of children living in refugee camps, the back and forth, looking into an uncertain future,” stresses Tekkal. “They are prisoners in a no-man’s land”.
in fact, most of the Yazidis now living in Camps in Northern Iraq, about 350,000 people. In their traditional settlement area in the char-the mountains, not back trust many. The disaster had taken its beginning: In the early hours of the morning of the 3. August 2014. Thousands of IS jihadists attacked the main settlement area of the Yazidis. Yazidis are with the jihadists than infidels and devil worshippers.
campaign of destruction of the IS
It was a campaign of destruction, and he was carefully planned: Jesidische men and boys over twelve years, were rounded up and the women and small children separately. An estimated 10,000 people were murdered and buried in mass graves.
Nearly 7000 jesidische women and children were abducted by the IS. About a third of these children were under 14. The IS had specially created a religious opinion, and widely used: the enslavement of jesidischen women and children was justified as the spoils of war religiously.
Dangerous return
a return to their mountainous home to so many of the Yazidis back in terror because the security situation is so bad. Not only the IS is still active in the Region – but in addition to Kurdish and Shiite militias and the Turkish army. At the end of June Ankara, the char had been attacked by a mountain range with combat aircraft. Ilhan Kizilhan, recalls: “it was Only a day earlier had decided to 150 families, to return from the Camps. All were happy, to build a future. A day later, everything was destroyed.”
activist Tekkal wants more than anything else, the establishment of an international protection zone by the United Nations. “We need to live a special region for protected jesidisches and we are in need of reconstruction”. It is Tekkal to the ruined city of Shingal to the villages of the Yazidi, to infrastructure, such as functioning electricity and water supply.
It signals hope in the fight against the Trauma.
author: Matthias von Hein
the Massive rain: the threat Where the start of the week Floods, Massive rain PCP: the threat Where the start of the week Floods
*The contribution of “nightmare without end for jesidische children” is published by Deutsche Welle. Contact with the executives here.
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