ISIS’s genocidal attack on the Yezidi population in northern Iraq in 2014 drew global attention to this small faith, with fewer than one million adherents. That summer, ISIS massacred Yezidi men and enslaved women and children, leaving over one hundred thousand besieged on Sinjar Mountain. While headlines have shifted, thousands of Yezidi women and children remain in captivity. Although Sinjar is now free from ISIS, the Yezidi homeland faces growing tensions, complicating the return for those who fled. The mass abduction of Yezidi women and children is vividly depicted through the first-hand reporting of a young journalist based in Iraqi Kurdistan for four years, covering the war with ISIS. Many Yezidi women, following ancestral traditions from past persecutions, attempted to make themselves unattractive to avoid rape. Currently, over 3,000 Yezidi women and girls remain in the Caliphate, treated as chattel. However, others have escaped or been released. The author’s work is grounded in interviews with survivors and their rescuers, meticulously piecing together their harrowing accounts of enslavement. These deeply moving personal narratives illuminate a profound human tragedy.
