Sirnak Saves Yezidi Refugees without Ankara’s Help

By Amy L. Beam, Ed.D:

“I watched Daash (Islamic State terrorists) kill my son. Three men with long swords chopped him across the back of his neck. I have two sons and eight daughters. We were trapped on Sinjar Mountain with no food or water. On the third day, my eldest son, Said Namer (age 23), volunteered to return to our village named Gohbal to get food.”

“From where we were on the mountain we could look down and see him when he was captured. We had no ammunition so there was nothing we could do to save him. We watched them kill him at 3 pm. After dark we went down and retrieved his body. His neck was cut half-way through. We buried him on Sinjar Mountain.”

Namir Yousif Osman’s (right) son was killed by the sword. Yezidi Ferhan Mahlo Khalil (left) is camp translator.

Aug 3-4, Yezidis flee from their villages

“When the PKK opened a way for us to escape, we walked to the Syrian border where we were met by cars. The PKK put us all in cars and sent us to Zakho where we were guided over the mountain to Turkey by the PKK. If it was not for the PKK we would not have made it. They saved us.”

Now Namer Yousif Osman, age 45, is in Sirnak commune with his eight daughters. His village of Gohbal in the Shengal region used to have a population of 7,000. The Sirnak commune is housing 1,312 Yezidis who fled from the Islamic State when they attacked Shengal on August 3, 2014. Each family has its own heart-wrenching story of terror and loss. An estimated 27,000 Yezidis are now in over a dozen refugee communes in Turkey.

Local Municipalities Provide Refuge without Ankara’s Help

All the communes are organized and supported by Kurdish donations and volunteers. Sirnak commune is run by the local municipality (Belediyesi) under the direction of the two co-mayors, Ms. Özlem Onuk and Mr. Serhat Kadirhan, elected from the DBP Kurdish party. Fatigue shows in their faces as they devote all their waking hours and resources to saving the Yezidi refugees.

Ismail Ike, from the municipality, oversees the daily logistics such as food, housing, bedding, transportation, and volunteers. His normal job is director of food and bakery inspections for Sirnak. On the day I met him in his office, he stated he had taken 50 babies to the hospital the day before, and he, himself, had received medical attention for fatigue and illness. He has been working day and night for six weeks for the Yezidis.

Özlem Onuk, Sirnak co-mayor (in black), Ismail Ike, (jacket) camp director

Mesut (striped shirt) explains building plans to Amy Beam

Repeated requests for financial help have been turned down by Ankara’s central government and the Sirnak Governor, appointed from Ankara. Ankara’s position is that the Yezidis must be sent back to Iraq. The Yezidis do not want to return to live in fear and terrible memories in Shengal. They want to go to Europe or beyond, but as of now there have been no offers of asylum from other countries. For now, Yezidis are living in limbo. Sirnak will be their home until a different solution is found. The Sirnak municipality in North Kurdistan (SE Turkey) is striving to make it feel like a safe and comfortable home for them.

Concrete Block Buildings Refurbished for Yezidis

Buildings are being converted into homes to house 3,000 people

The people remaining in tents will move indoors before winter

Buckets of paint – all buildings will be painted inside and outside

Two stacks of wood for construction sits in the parking area

All buildings are getting new doors, windows, wiring, and paint

Each family will have its own living area with communal showers

At least 50 babies have received medical attention

Children play and smile without understanding the grief

The municipality has refurbished five empty buildings on the location of a coal mining site on the road to Cizre with more buildings yet to be completed. There are mounds of black coal rocks and coal dust alongside the entrance road. The two-story buildings have new windows, fresh paint on the inside, Kurdish carpets, and a magnificent view of the Cudi mountain range. The outsides are being repaired and painted. Stacks of plywood sheets sit in the parking lot along with hundreds of gallons of paint.

The toilets and showers are being refurbished. By October they will be completed with 22 hot water showers and toilets for women and 22 for men in one building. Two new washing machines are installed with another ten scheduled for delivery. They are racing to complete refurbishing the buildings in order to move those living in tents inside before winter arrives.

Mesut Kadirhan from the municipality (who asked for no recognition for his hard labors) is completing installation of a coal-burning heating system for all the buildings and also hot water which will be piped not only to the showers, but to all the buildings. The water and heating systems should be completed by October. The heating systems cost 80,000 Turkish lire ($36,000 US dollars). Mesut explained that when the population reaches 3,000, they will build another building.

Showers and toilets will be refurbished by October

The laundry room will have 12 new washing machines

A coal-burning furnace will heat all buildings

Hot water will be piped to showers and all buildings by October

Food is prepared on-site. Each family has been given large stainless steel pots to get food for their families and return to their rooms to eat.

Two Kurdish women volunteers have come from Germany to run a clinic. One is a doctor, the other a nurse who will volunteer in Sirnak for one year. She is not representing any organization. As with other volunteers, they simply feel it in their heart to show up and help. They have been visiting all the communes.

The commune is surrounded by barbed wire fence primarily to keep out unwanted intruders who may want to harm Yezidis. There are no police or soldiers present. The security guards are from the local municipality. Yezidi residents are free to go into town, 5 km away, and return. The municipality provides a free daily bus service in the afternoon.

Belediyesi free bus takes people into Sirnak once a day

The red, green, and yellow colors of Kurdistan adorn one wall

In the evening, a projection system is set up and movies are shown on the side of a building in the parking area. One of the main problems now, as Yezidis have been in Sirnak one month, is inactivity and boredom. They are left with nothing to do, but to sit in groups and share their stories of deaths and kidnappings in Shengal.

Documentation of Human Rights Abuses

Ismail Ike, commune director, is compiling a list of all names of commune residents and documenting the stories and human rights abuses of each person, but he is only one man. Friends, counselors, and human rights volunteers are needed to help in this process. The daily grieving and crying continues as hundreds of women, some of whom are family members of the Yezidis in Sirnak, are being held captive by the Islamic State.

Amy Beam and residents listen to Dler Khalaf (blue t-shirt seated). Ferhan Mahlo Khalil (seated right) translates

Adib Khudeda Qasem has 28 female relatives kidnapped

Dler Havend Khalaf, 22, was in medical school when 100 people from his village of Tel Qasap were captured, 27 of whom are his relatives. His cousin was sold into sexual slavery in Raqa. His sister is being held in Tel Afar. His brother-in-law, Basman, was killed by IS. Dler is helping with the commune’s clinic.

Twenty-year-old Adib made a list of 28 of her female relatives kidnapped by IS and taken to the village of Kaser Almuhrab. Four are shown in an Islamic State propaganda video posted on Youtube being forced to convert to Islam. The relative of another commune resident, held by IS, managed to make a secret phone call to her father and report that she had been raped for 18 continuous hours. They have not heard from her again. Some women have been sold into sexual slavery in Saudi Arabia and Syria for as little as $5 US dollars.

Everyone in this camp has a terrible story and is suffering severe trauma without relief when they know their girls and women are being raped on a daily basis. They are crying out for international help to rescue the Yezidi women from the Islamic State.

More Help Needed

As the Yezidis settle in for winter, much more volunteer effort is needed to turn their “camp” into a community. Providing food will remain a high priority, including baby formula, protein, and nutritional fruits and vegetables. Keeping in mind that the Turkish central government has denied financial help, this will continue to be a difficult problem as weeks turn into months.

Everything in a normal community is needed, especially activities to counter the boredom such as books, games, playground equipment, notebooks, music, movies, computers, and TV.

Many people are without phones or Turkish SIM cards, or they need credit put on their phones. Donations of computers installed on site with internet connection would help Yezidis communicate with relatives in Iraq and work on researching a solution for their futures.

Yezidi commune translator, Ferhan Muhlo Khalil, misses his computer which had all the photos and memories of his lifetime stored on it. Although he is the commune translator for visitors, he has no phone.

Winter clothing is needed. Sanitary pads are needed. If you can think of it, it is needed.

The children need schooling, classroom furniture, white boards, and school supplies. Everyone needs to learn the Roman alphabet and a new language if they are not planning to return to Iraq.

Media coverage is needed in order to force parliaments of the world to discuss the Yezidi crisis and offer asylum.

Contact

Volunteers may contact the Şirnak Belediyesi online, by phone (0090 486 216 1205), fax (0090 486 216 1214), or in person. The co-mayors are Ms. Özlem Onuk and Mr. Serhat Kadirhan. The Yezidi commune director is Ismail Ike.

Dr. Amy L. Beam promotes tourism in eastern Turkey at Mount Ararat Trek and writes in support of Kurdish human rights. She has been following the Yezidis from Roboski border north. Follow her on Twitter @amybeam or email her at amybeam@yahoo.com.

Follow other news stories on Yezidis by Amy L Beam at http://kurdistantribune.com/?s=amy+l+beam