ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A mother and grandmother recounted the pain she went through knowing the daily brutality that her daughters were suffering at the hands of militants of the Islamic State (ISIS) and the difficult choices they faced while in captivity.
“I am the mother of 33 martyrs, missing persons and prisoners,” Shame Dero told attendees of a conference in Erbil to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Yazidi genocide. “I raised these children with water, bitter tears, and a broken heart.”
When ISIS attacked 10 years ago, Dero and some of her family were able to escape towards Mount Shingal. But not all of her family was able to flee. The men who remained were killed and the women and children were taken by the militants.
Although Dero survived, many in her family did not, and she heard the stories of what her daughters were suffering - sold into the service of ISIS militants. She said she praised God when she received the news that two of her daughters made the difficult choice to take their own lives, thanking God that her girls were not suffering anymore, that they were no longer “at the mercy of these savages.”
Many Yazidis are still missing, and she pleaded for help finding them.
“Believe me, I can't shed tears anymore. My eyes are blind. We carry bitterness in our throats. We ask you to rise up and save the girls from the hands of the savages,” she said.
“We want you to help us, our burden is heavy.”
ISIS seized control of large swathes of land in Iraq and Syria in 2014. The group committed genocide against Yazidis when they overran the ethnoreligious minority’s heartland of Shingal, killing around 5,000 Yazidi men and older women, some of whom were buried in mass graves.
According to official figures, 6,417 Yazidis were abducted by ISIS, and 3,579 of them have been rescued so far.
