Yazidi woman from Afrin: “I recited Quran verses in order not to be killed”

The Turkish occupation forces in Afrin have done everything in the past four years to wipe out the existence of the Yazidi population. All holy sites have been destroyed. Yazidis have been killed and abducted, mosques have been built in their villages and forced Islamization has been carried out. Before the occupation, approximately 25,000 Yazidis lived in Afrin. Today there are fewer than 2,000. 7,000 of the displaced Yazidis are resisting in Shehba in the hope of one day returning to their homeland.

One of them is Emira Fuat. The 66-year-old woman is from the village of Qibar in Afrin and lost her son in an attack by the Turkish invaders on March 18, 2018. On Newroz, she buried him with her own hands. After that, her husband was abducted by the occupation forces. Before he was released for ransom, he was tortured several times. Today, Emira Fuat lives with her family in Shehba. In her dreams, she sees herself working in her olive grove and garden again after Afrin’s liberation.

“You are infidels, we will kill all Yazidis”

The family left for Shehba barely two weeks before the complete occupation of Afrin due to the massive attacks. Their son Fuat returned to Afrin from there and was killed along with his cousin Abdo when a building on the road to Jindires was blown up by the occupiers. When news of their death arrived, Emira and her husband went to Afrin to recover the bodies and bury them in Qibar.

“Three days later, we wanted to return to Shehba. The Turkish gangs would not let us. We stayed in Jabal Ahlam for three days without food or shelter. Then we were sent back to Afrin and went back to our village. In the meantime, the Islamists and the Turks were there. Ten days after our return, they came to our house at night. They held guns to our heads and said: ‘You are infidels. We will kill all the Yazidis.’ I recited suras from the Koran to save our lives. They would have killed us otherwise. We stayed in Afrin for three months. Our house was raided three times and we were mistreated,” Emira said.

“Bring us 5000 dollars and you will get your husband back”

When the occupation troops came to her house for the second time, they took Emira’s husband. “They said they were just going to question him and bring him back in half an hour. After two weeks, he was still not back. I went to Afrin with my siblings to ask the Turks. One Turk said: ‘Bring $5,000 here in three days and you will get your husband back.’ I turned back and called Shehba and many other places. Finally, I got the money together. With that, I went to them. They took the money and released my husband the same day. They had taken his ID card and all his money and tortured him. His foot was broken and his back was full of hematomas.”

Two or three days later, the Islamists entered their house again and took the couple to the house of a Yazidi acquaintance: “They took us to the house of Mahmut Keleş. Everything in the house was devastated. They had thrown the sacred books of the Yazidis and other objects into the garden and trampled on them. They held guns to our heads again and said that we were infidels and they would kill us.”

Emire and her husband were released again and after three days they were taken again, “This time they took us to another acquaintance of ours, Esad. There were three men there with their hands tied and blindfolded. They were being beaten. To save us, I said again that we were Yazidis but we adhered to the Quran. I had to recite suras again.”

“I have only one wish”

When Emira and her husband returned to their village, their house had been looted by the occupiers. After three months, the couple managed to escape the occupied zone. To be let through to Shehba, they paid Erdogan’s jihadists 600,000 Syrian liras.

“What is happening in Afrin is horrific. Life is no longer possible under the occupation and the Yazidis are being particularly cruelly oppressed. I have only one wish, that the Turks and their gangs disappear from Afrin. We want to return to our homeland,” Emira Fuat concluded.