May 08, 2019
Turkia Shamo Ali Story
DOB:1995 – Location: Dahok – Kurdistan, Iraq I only finished the 6th grade. I am a Yazidi from Sinjar. I come from a family of 7 my father was in the military and he died in the line of duty in 2006. I cannot express our feelings when ISIS entered Sinjar. At sunrise,…
I only finished the 6th grade. I am a Yazidi from Sinjar. I come from a family of 7 my father was in the military and he died in the line of duty in 2006.
I cannot express our feelings when ISIS entered Sinjar. At sunrise, the sky was clear and free from smoke and blood. When they attacked us, we didn’t know where to go. We heard people crying and screaming. We don’t know why or how things happened. Everybody was running towards the mountain, since we were surrounded by ISIS, by killing, abduction and injustice. People were leaving their houses without food, water or clothes. We all wished to die and not see children starving, girls committing suicide. Everybody was afraid, some ran to the mountains and others didn’t know what to do. Neighbors deceived each other, women and girls being kidnapped, men and boys being killed these are all the actions of the terrorist group ISIS. We escaped once ISIS entered Sinjar, before they got to our village. So many people who didn’t have cars were walking and were captured by ISIS. A military group has withdrawn, therefore, the Yazidi men had fight and defend their families and the people till they get to the mountain.
We ran to the mountain and stayed there for 8 days and left on the 9th day. On the mountain, the trees and the rocks were our shelter. We had no food to eat or water to drink. Children and mothers were crying. But if it wasn’t for the strength of the Yazidis, we would have all been dead. On the road to the mountain stayed a group of Yazidi men to protect those on the mountain and stop ISIS from reaching to them.
We walked for 12 hours till we reached the Syrian borders. We kept on walking, leaving Sinjar behind with tears in our eyes, escaping death and fear. From Syria we to Kurdistan where they welcomed us there warmly knew the hardships that we went through.
I met road to success Roads of Success staff in our camp. They opened the door of hope in front of me through TOT as I joined mentorship program is the beginning to overcome my psychological distress .The new challenge is that I must learn English language and that’s what I was provided by ROS through the Tech over Trauma program and I have a language so that the program helped me to enroll at the University of Liberty in the United States where I was one of the students who learned through the Internet provided by ROS to us in the camps.
This step supported me to be accepted at the college in electronic journalism department to be a journalist to raise the voice of my oppressed people and my broken homeland so I decided to work hard and read and learn to be an educated and qualified person for this task.
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