Damage from clashes could delay start of school year in Lebanon’s largest Palestinian camp, UN says

Damage from clashes could delay start of school year in Lebanon’s largest Palestinian camp, UN says

Yazidi survivors of 2014 Daesh atrocities in Iraq speak of coping with trauma, struggle to find justice

IRBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan: Shortly after midnight on Aug. 3, 2014, heavily armed Daesh extremists swept into the Yazidi homeland of Sinjar in northwestern Iraq, rounding up the civilian population to slaughter them or take them into captivity.

Daesh deliberately targeted the Yazidi community, one of Iraq’s oldest ethnoreligious minorities, because it considered them apostates for their religious traditions. Nine years later, the survivors are still coming to terms with what happened.

“I remember my parents frantically waking me and my siblings up at around 2 a.m.,” Barzan H., 23, told Arab News in Irbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq, where he now resides along with thousands of other displaced Yazidis.

“I peeked out of the windows and saw black trucks and jeeps coming in from the distance. The men who were older and able took up arms, with the rifles they had at home and anything else they could get their hands on to protect us.”

Barzan was only 14 years old when Daesh attacked his hometown. As the extremists advanced, he and his neighbors grabbed whatever they could carry and fled their homes.