By Amy L. Beam, Ed.D: Four-year-old Waleed was born blind. When the Islamic State gangs attacked Shingal, Iraq, on August 3, 2014, his family fled on foot to Mount Shingal along with 70,000 other Ezidis. They were stranded on the mountain for eight days until the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) opened an escape route for…
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Category Archives: Yazidis
$100 Goes a Long Way in an Ezidi Refugee Camp
By Amy L. Beam, Ed.D: Dear Barbara and Alan, Yesterday I spent my birthday in the Sirnak Ezidi refugee commune. Here’s how I spent your latest $100 donation. I bought the last 12 stove-top electric burners in Sirnak at a cost of $4.45 dollars each for a total of $54 dollars. The shop owner discounted…
Adib’s Story: An Ezidi Woman Who Escaped the Islamic State
By Amy L. Beam, Ed.D: “I used to have a nice life until Daash attacked us in Shingal,” explains 20-year-old Adib Khudeda Qasem. The Islamic State (also referred to as IS, ISIS, ISID, ISIL) is called “Daash” in Iraq. “Now our life is finished,” adds her younger brother. Adib is now living with 32 of…
Genocide: 10 Reasons Why Ezidis Refuse to Return to Shingal
By Amy L. Beam, Ed.D: Since Sept 3, 2014, Dr. Amy L. Beam has visited with hundreds of Ezidis in 12 refugee camps in Turkey. While camp directors and international media continue to say the Ezidis will return to Shingal “when it is safe,” she has not found one Ezidi refugee who agrees. To the…
Games that are a playing – Lives that are a living
By Shenah Abdullah: “It’s no use for the world talking about me and my people when I still have to wake up the next morning worrying about my sons and daughters missing and how to comfort their children. Everyone is responsible. What can you do to comfort my burning heart?” Words of a grandmother who…
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…
Why does the Turkish MIT support ISIS?
By Arian Mufid: On 2th August, when ISIS invaded Sinjar – resulting in mass killings, rapes, looting and the destruction of thousands of homes of Kurds of the Yazidi religion – ISIS couldn’t be stopped for two main reasons. First, the Peshmarga operations were stymied by the tactical errors of some commanders. Second, the ISIS barbarian…
Turkish Government Refuses Humanitarian Aid to Yezidi Refugees
By Amy L. Beam, Ed.D: Since the Islamic State terrorists invaded Shengal (also known as Sinjar) in Iraq on August 3, an estimated 27,000 Yezidis have fled with the clothes on their backs to the safety of Turkey. At least 21,000 were guided on foot by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to the mountain pass…
Conditions in 11 Yezidi Refugee Camps in Turkey
By Amy L. Beam: Between Sept. 3 – 14, I visited the Yezidi refugees in their camps from Roboski to Diyarbakir. Yezidis fled from Shengal, Iraq, when Islamic State forces attacked them on August 3-4. There was a population between 700,000 and one million Yezidis living in the Shengal region in northeast Iraq on the…
Yezidis Beg for United Nations Help in Diyarbakir
By Amy L. Beam, Ed.D: On Sept. 15, I got an urgent call from an Yezidi in the Diyarbakir Shengal refugee camp. He reported their situation is dire without enough food, and he begged me to come there and tell the world of their plight. There are 4,500 Yezidis camping under open skies in Fidanlik…
PKK Refused Money from Yezidis Fleeing ISIS
By Amy L Beam: An estimated 25,000 Yezidi refugees fleeing the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) attack of their homeland in Shengal, Iraq, have fled through the mountains to Roboski, Turkey (North Kurdistan). They have been sheltered and fed by Kurds from Roboski north to Diyarbakir and west to Mardin. I have visited ten Yezidi…
Traumatized Ezidis Share Tragic Stories at Hilal School in North Kurdistan
By Amy L. Beam, Ed.D: I was planning on attending a wedding, not a funeral, this week in the village of Hilal. A Kurdish wedding is a grand, carnival-like, three-day community event with outdoor music, dancing, and eating from morning ’til midnight. But the wedding was cancelled. It would be an affront to flaunt a…
Roboski: How a village of 1200 saved 20,000 Ezidi refugees with help of PKK
By Amy L. Beam, Ed.D: “If it were not for the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) helping us all along the way, there would not be one Ezidi left alive today.” This was the same litany I heard repeated from dozens of refugees in camps in Roboski, Hilal, and Şirnak, in North Kurdistan (southeast Turkey). When…
Yezidi delegation and US Consul-General in Iraq discuss ways forward
By the Central Council of Yezidis in Germany: A lot has been done so far to help the suffering people in Northern Iraq. Today we know that most of this help does not get to the refugees. Some needs of the refugees have yet to be considered and as of yet, nothing has been done…
Mission NOT Accomplished: Rescue the Yazidi Women
By Osamah Golpy: Two major events coincided on June 10, 2014: the Islamic State (IS) overran Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq; and the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict took place in London, co-chaired by William Hague, the former UK Foreign Secretary, and Angelina Jolie, Special Envoy for the UN High Commissioner…
