'They Even Cut the Throats of the Babies': Yazidi Survivors Share How they Lost their Families to ISIS

In Kurdish-protected and internationally-organized refugee camps throughout Iraq and Syria, Christians, Yazidis, and Muslim Kurds live a tentative life in which many have lost their entire families and have no sense of when they will be able to return to a life of normalcy.

Speaking to the UK’s Daily Mail, a number of refugees living in various centers across Iraq told stories and shared photos of the family they had either never seen again or watched die before their eyes. “My older brother, my father, my mother, my wife and even my two kids were killed. All I have left of them is just one picture on my mobile phone,” says one man, Tahysn, whose two sons were aged three and four when killed.

A Yazidi grandmother identified as Rezal, who escaped Mount Sinjar, managed to escape the wrath of the Islamic State, but watched children die on the mountain of thirst and heat. “When we left Sinjar, the kids suffered a lot… Many men from our village died, many women have been captured. I saw some kids dying because of the heat,” she said. “Daesh [the local name for ISIS based on their Arabic acronym]… even cut the throats of the babies,” she said.

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