Author- Lakshmi Subramanian

After eight months with the doctor, Leyla was sold again and again, to men from Iraq, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Leyla who was at the first instance given as a gift to a fighter was later sold to each man and the price varied. And when Abu Hani, a Lebanese came, he said, he would marry her as he did not want to do anything Haram. It was a religious marriage at an Islamic State Court. It was then she tried to find a way to reach her family. In Raqqa, she came in touch with another woman, who helped her by giving her access to a phone. She reached her brother over the phone, who got in touch with a smuggler, who smuggled her out for a ransom, in April 2017.

Leyla gets nightmares even now. She has not slept peacefully and she waits for information about Marwan. “I don’t know if he is alive or dead. But I want him to come home alive,” she says. Leyla, like other Ezidi women, doesn’t want to cover her face as she narrates her horror story. “I want to help other Ezidis who have been affected like me. I want to be an inspiration to them, to fight all odds in life,” tells Leyla.

Like Leyla, when ISIS attacked Sinjar, more than one lakh Ezidis fled the place to save themselves. And those could not flee the place were rounded up. Many Ezidi men were massacred, while the women and children were captured. Many men were thrown into pits, many died of dehydration, torture and harassment. According to the Sheikh, at the Mala Ezidiyan Li Herema Centre in Hasakh, that works to rescue Ezidi women and children captured by ISIS, at least 6,383 Ezidi women and children were enslaved by ISIS, transported to their prisons, military training camps and forced to convert to Islam.

The Ezidis are a majority Kurdish speaking people who live in Mount Sinjar bordering Syria and Kurdistan Iraq in Northern Iraq. With a population of just one million people across the globe. Considered to be infidels by the Muslims, they have always been forced to convert. The Yazidis worship fire and their temple Lalish, 47 kilometres from Duhok, is almost similar to the Hindu temples. They participate in baptism and feasts. They sing hymns and narrate stories of historical and mythical battles like the Hindus. Visiting sacred places is considered as a religious practice.

Ezidi24.com