Dohuk, Iraq - As the sun sank below the mountains of northern Iraq, 25-year-old Noora recounted fleeing Sinjar with her family last August as fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) advanced.
Noora, who spoke under a pseudonym and now lives in the Shreya refugee camp in northern Iraq, witnessed ISIL fighters massacre Yazidi men and saw her brothers taken captive before her eyes, she told Al Jazeera. Then the fighters captured her and took her to Badush prison near Mosul, where she said approximately 4,000 other Yazidi girls were held.
"Everyone who fled that day saw someone killed or had someone close to them taken," Noora said. "We will never forget. It will be in our memories until the day we die. No Yazidi can ever forget this day."
In the UN-issued tent she shares with her extended family, Noora nodded towards her infant niece, with whom she escaped ISIL territory in May. "Not even the children will forget," she said.
Eyad, second from left, a refugee from Sinjar who worked with a local smuggler to ensure the release of Noora from ISIL captivity [Andrea DiCenzo/Al Jazeera]
Less than one month after Mosul fell to ISIL, its fighters advanced on the predominantly Yazidi region of Sinjar in northern Iraq on August 3, 2014. According to Yazidi rights group Yazda, about 3,000 Yazidi men were killed, and more than 5,000 others, mostly women and children, remain in ISIL captivity after being abducted by the group.
Mahira, 26, who was also abducted by ISIL while fleeing from Sinjar, escaped eight months and 12 days later. She told Al Jazeera that even after escaping her captors, whom she said were Bosnian nationals, recovery could only begin after being reunited with her parents. Their whereabouts remain unknown. "I thought when I escaped, I would see my parents' faces," Mahira said at a centre for ISIL escapees in Dohuk. "Instead, I still see the faces of my captors."
Noora, whose brothers are still held by ISIL in Iraq, does not believe that the community as a whole can recover from the collective trauma of August 3 until families are reunited and those still in captivity are rescued.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/year-isil-attack-yazidis-forget-150823115932613.html
