We set out for Shingal, Iraq at just after dawn, the drive from Qamishili, Syria would normally be about 3 hours long, however due to disputed territories we had about an hour-long detour through open, muddy fields to get us across the Iraqi-Syrian border. Once on the Iraqi side of the border we drove through the Christian villages of Tell Brak, Tel Hamees, Jaza, and Khana Sor; each more decimated than the last, with word being that the Islamic State had simply began bulldozing homes of the Christians, to eliminate any chance of them returning to their homes.
Assorted graffiti from the various factions of the ongoing conflict appeared on many walls of buildings mostly bulldozed, looted, burnt, or bombed. The Islamic State graffiti was least prominent, with Kurdish graffiti sprayed over it, followed by graffiti from the YPG, the YPJ, the PKK, and finally the PUK and PDK. The age of the differing graffiti was an apparent indicator of who had been there the longest, and endured the greatest deal of fighting, as the YPG and the YPJ were the first to arrive to the people near the Sinjar Mountains rescue, following the Islamic State’s assault, in which the PDK and PUK forces who were largely outnumbered fled.
The drive up and over Mount Sinjar was the only way in or out of Shingal, as it was the only area secured by Kurdish forces. Climbing slowly up the mountain, we found a few destroyed former US Army Humvees, stripped as bare as they could, but hard to say to whom they belonged once they were destroyed, nor who stripped them down. Coming around one bend, we were greeted by beautiful terraced fields of green, where Yezidi farmers were growing tobacco. Behind the green fields were orange tents donated by the UN and other aid agencies.
We stopped and spoke with a few of the displaced Yezidi’s, some of whom had formed their own militias to combat against the Islamic State, in efforts to retake their homes below the mountain in the city of Shingal. They offered us tea and cigarettes, their hospitality as sweet as the dark black chai. We sat around in the tent, I asked few questions and simply allowed them to express their feelings. This story wasn’t my assignment, and I honestly had no professional interest in it, but humanitarian. The Yezidi people had faced the worst massacre of the Islamic State, in August 2014 civilians were fleeing from their homes in Shingal into the mountains, under the burning Iraqi August Sun, desperately packing helicopters to the brim in efforts to escape the grim fate of being executed or sold off into sex slavery by the Islamic State. More than 5,000 women were sold amongst the fighters and supporters of the Islamic State often for as little as 15,000 Iraqi Dinar ($15.00 US). The stories were overwhelming. More than I could possibly pay justice with a few images of their camp. The fighting was audible in the mountains below, and seemed to increase in volume like a slow fade as the morning came into bloom. As rockets crashed in the city below and the caliber of gunfire had made an obvious and gradual increase, the fighters made their way to trucks to take them down the mountain and resume the fight to retake their homes.
After breaking from tea with the Yezidi’s, we drove to the summit of Mount Sinjar to request permission from the PKK who were spearheading the Shingal operation, to join them down in the city. “Not today, it is far too dangerous.” we were bluntly told by their commander. He had a point though; on the drive in, just down the mountain from the summit where we were, a Dutch volunteer with the YPG was critically wounded by an IED just days before. I had interviewed him.
I set up my camera on a tripod, and recorded a 15 minute clip zoomed in as tightly as I could of the fighting below us. Men and women of the YPG, YPJ, and PKK posed for photographs from the summit, before their patrols descended into the city for a day or more of what would be certain hell on earth. They posed with an AK-47 in one hand and two fingers raised up and pointed upwards. I didn’t bother photographing them, as it seemed that they had enough documentation of their own from the efforts. I let my camera roll, and sat defeatedly in the knowledge that we would no get to see Shingal from up close, rather from this great distance. The sounds and the occasional flash from explosions, the smoke pouring from the heart of the Yezidi hometown, unending gunfire. I didn’t want to go there. Watching it from this distance was awful enough. I lit a cigarette and watched Shingal burn.