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Seven Years On, Yazidi Survivor Buries Father Slain by ISIS

Thikran Kamiran Yousif, 22, visits his father's grave in Kojo, Iraq February 7, 2021. REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani
Thikran Kamiran Yousif, 22, visits his father's grave in Kojo, Iraq February 7, 2021. REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani
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Seven Years On, Yazidi Survivor Buries Father Slain by ISIS

Thikran Kamiran Yousif, 22, visits his father's grave in Kojo, Iraq February 7, 2021. REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani
Thikran Kamiran Yousif, 22, visits his father's grave in Kojo, Iraq February 7, 2021. REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani

Thikran Kamiran Yousif was 15 when ISIS militants surrounded his village in northern Iraq, rounded up residents and slaughtered several hundred of them, including his father, brother, grandfather and aunt.

Nearly seven years later, Yousif has returned to the village of Kojo in Sinjar district for the reburial of his father and 103 other Yazidis whose bodies had been dumped by ISIS in mass graves and have now been identified by DNA samples.

Yousif, now 22 and living in Germany, is still haunted by the massacre of August 2014.

"The most painful moment was when they separated me from my father. That was the last time I saw him," Yousif told Reuters.

"To be able, after seven years, to bury (these people) where they were killed... means so much to us," said Yousif, whose other slain relatives have not yet been identified.

ISIS killed more than 3,000, enslaved 7,000 Yazidi women and girls and displaced most of the 550,000-strong community from its ancestral home in northern Iraq.

UNITAD, the UN team investigating ISIS crimes in Iraq, has discovered more than 80 mass graves in Sinjar and has exhumed 19 of them since March 2019. It has so far identified 104 bodies by DNA samples.

You can almost see the territory controlled by ISIS “by the number of mass graves in the area," said Karim Khan, head of the United Nations team investigating ISIS crimes in Iraq (UNITAD).

During the year-and-a-half he spent in the hands of ISIS, Yousif was moved around several times, used as a human shield in Mosul.

"They taught us that killing Yazidis is allowed," he said. "They worked on our minds."

As bombings by the US-led coalition intensified over ISIS-held territory in northern Iraq, Yousif feared he would be killed or forced to fight for ISIS. In early 2016, he fled to Iraqi Kurdistan with his mother and sister.

"In the beginning it was very hard, psychologically. I was confused. I was telling myself that I should not forget what ISIS taught me," Yousif said.

A year ago, Yousif, his mother and sister found refuge in Germany with the help of Air Bridge Iraq, a non-profit organization that advocates for the treatment and rehabilitation of Yazidi survivors of ISIS captivity outside of Iraq.

Iraqi President Barham Saleh and Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi attended an official funeral ceremony for the 104 identified Yazidi victims on Feb. 4 in Baghdad, ahead of the burials in Kojo, which remains in ruins and uninhabited.

A reparation law for female survivors of ISIS captivity is awaiting ratification by the Iraqi parliament, but it excludes men and boys like Yousif who were also held captive.

And the Yazidis are demanding much more, including the legal recognition of their suffering as genocide.

There is no legal architecture in place in Iraq to allow judges to conclude that the conduct of ISIS “constituted an act of genocide, of crimes against humanity or war crimes," Khan said, adding that UNITAD's mandate was to provide evidence to bring the culprits to trial eventually.

About 30% of Sinjar district's population has returned since the departure of ISIS, but the region is still racked by political instability and lacks basic services.

At his father's graveside in Kojo, surrounded by other grieving Yazidis, mostly widows, Yousif said his community simply wanted justice.

"We want the world to see that there is a minority in Iraq that suffers," he said. "We want the world to see us as human beings who have rights just like everyone else."

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Damascus’ Mazzeh 86 Neighborhood, Witness of The Two-Assad Era

Members of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent stand near the wreckage of a car after what the Syrian state television said was a "guided missile attack" on the car in the Mazzeh area of Damascus, Syria October 21, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
Members of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent stand near the wreckage of a car after what the Syrian state television said was a "guided missile attack" on the car in the Mazzeh area of Damascus, Syria October 21, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
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Damascus’ Mazzeh 86 Neighborhood, Witness of The Two-Assad Era

Members of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent stand near the wreckage of a car after what the Syrian state television said was a "guided missile attack" on the car in the Mazzeh area of Damascus, Syria October 21, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
Members of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent stand near the wreckage of a car after what the Syrian state television said was a "guided missile attack" on the car in the Mazzeh area of Damascus, Syria October 21, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi

In the Mazzeh 86 neighborhood, west of the Syrian capital Damascus, the names of many shops, grocery stores, and public squares still serve as a reminder of the era of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his late father, Hafez al-Assad.

This is evident in landmarks like the “Al-Hafez Restaurant,” one of the prominent features of this area. Squares such as “Al-Areen,” “Officers,” and “Bride of the Mountain” evoke memories of the buildings surrounding them, which once housed influential officials and high-ranking officers in intelligence and security agencies. These individuals instilled fear in Syrians for five decades until their historic escape on the night of the regime’s collapse last month.

In this neighborhood, the effects of Israeli bombing are clearly visible, as it was targeted multiple times. Meanwhile, its narrow streets and alleys were strewn with military uniforms abandoned by leaders who fled before military operations arrived and liberated the area from their grip on December 8 of last year.

Here, stark contradictions come to light during a tour by Asharq Al-Awsat in a district that, until recently, was largely loyal to the former president. Muaz, a 42-year-old resident of the area, recounts how most officers and security personnel shed their military uniforms and discarded them in the streets on the night of Assad’s escape.

He said: “Many of them brought down their weapons and military ranks in the streets and fled to their hometowns along the Syrian coast.”

Administratively part of Damascus, Mazzeh 86 consists of concrete blocks randomly built between the Mazzeh Western Villas area, the Mazzeh Highway, and the well-known Sheikh Saad commercial district. Its ownership originally belonged to the residents of the Mazzeh area in Damascus. The region was once agricultural land and rocky mountain terrain. The peaks extending toward Mount Qasioun were previously seized by the Ministry of Defense, which instructed security and army personnel to build homes there without requiring property ownership documents.

Suleiman, a 30-year-old shop owner, who sells white meat and chicken, hails from the city of Jableh in the coastal province of Latakia. His father moved to this neighborhood in the 1970s to work as an army assistant.

Suleiman says he hears the sound of gunfire every evening, while General Security patrols roam the streets “searching for remnants of the former regime and wanted individuals who refuse to surrender their weapons. We fear reprisals and just want to live in peace.”

He mentioned that prices before December 8 were exorbitant and beyond the purchasing power of Syrians, with the price of a kilogram of chicken exceeding 60,000 Syrian pounds and a carton of eggs reaching 75,000.

“A single egg was sold for 2,500 pounds, which is far beyond the purchasing power of any employee in the public or private sector,” due to low salaries and the deteriorating living conditions across the country,” Suleiman added.

On the sides of the roads, pictures of the fugitive president and his father, Hafez al-Assad, were torn down, while military vehicles were parked, awaiting instructions.

Maram, 46, who previously worked as a civilian employee in the Ministry of Defense, says she is waiting for the resolution of employment statuses for workers in army institutions. She stated: “So far, there are no instructions regarding our situation. The army forces and security personnel have been given the opportunity for settlement, but there is no talk about us.”

The neighborhood, in its current form, dates back to the 1980s when Rifaat al-Assad, the younger brother of former President Hafez al-Assad, was allowed to construct the “Defense Palace,” which was referred to as “Brigade 86.” Its location is the same area now known as Mazzeh Jabal 86.

The area is divided into two parts: Mazzeh Madrasa (School) and Mazzeh Khazan (Tank). The first takes its name from the first school built and opened in the area, while the second is named after the water tank that supplies the entire Mazzeh region.

Two sources from the Mazzeh Municipality and the Mukhtar’s office estimate the neighborhood’s current population at approximately 200,000, down from over 300,000 before Assad’s fall. Most residents originate from Syria’s coastal regions, followed by those from interior provinces like Homs and Hama. There was also a portion of Kurds who had moved from the Jazira region in northeastern Syria to live there, but most returned to their areas due to the security grip and after the “Crisis Cell” bombing that killed senior security officials in mid-2012.

Along the main street connecting Al-Huda Square to Al-Sahla Pharmacy, torn images of President Hafez al-Assad are visible for the first time in this area in five decades. On balconies and walls, traces of Bashar al-Assad’s posters remain, bearing witness to his 24-year era.