The Yazidis who survived Islamic State

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

Kate Adie introduces stories from Iraqi Kurdistan's Yazidi community, the streets of Marseille, the former USSR and the Caribbean island of Nevis. From 2011 to 2017, the Yazidi minority in Iraq lived in terror, as the community was targeted by Islamic State's fighters for especially brutal repression. There were fears of genocide - that the whole community might be wiped out. That didn't happen - but as Rachel Wright has seen, Yazidis who survived captivity and slavery under IS are still finding life extremely tough today, trying to eke out a living in tented cities of refugees. After the mass civil disorder across France, there's passionate debate over the root causes of the revolt on the streets, and what the rioters really wanted. Jenny Hill reports from Marseille on what she heard from residents of the city's vast and decaying Frais Vallon housing project. Ibrat Safo reveals a personal story of childhood in the former USSR - and making contact again with the woman who helped to raise him. His family were Uzbek, while his nanny was of Uzbek and Ukrainian descent. They grew up together speaking Russian in a provincial Soviet town. So when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, he felt an urgent need to track her down, and find out where life has taken her. And Rob Crossan reveals why the Caribbean island of Nevis hasn't turned much of a profit from its connection with one of America's Founding Fathers - the celebrated Alexander Hamilton. Producer: Polly Hope Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith Production Co-Ordinator: Gemma Ashman

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts
0:05.0	Today, after France went up in flames, some voices from the margins in Marseille.
0:11.2	Why the Caribbean island of Nevis has not spun much profit from its most famous son that
0:16.9	celebrated American economist Alexander Hamilton.
0:21.4	And one correspondent reconnects with a woman who helped raise him.
0:25.9	On Uzbek and the Ukrainian, they grew up speaking Russian together in what was then the
0:30.8	Soviet Union.
0:32.8	First to Iraq, and the case of a community which has been victimized over and over again.
0:38.9	The Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking group with their own religion, who have been targeted
0:43.3	many times over the centuries by their Arab or Turkish rulers.
0:47.8	Often, these outsiders considered traditional Yazidi beliefs to be heresy and against Islam.
0:54.3	The Yazidi community resisted several purges and waves of religious persecution over
0:59.4	the millennia.
1:00.7	But perhaps the fiercest of all befell them during this century, when the Islamic State
1:05.6	group targeted them for especially brutal repression.
1:09.8	During the time when ISIS controlled a large stretch of territory across the Iraqi Syrian
1:14.4	border, it so-called Caliphate, there was talk of an imminent genocide.
1:20.2	There were moments when it looked as if the Yazidis might be wiped out altogether.
1:25.4	That didn't happen, many did escape and survive, but as Rachel Wright has heard, their
1:31.2	life today has not healed the wounds.
1:34.4	As we walked along the wide dusty paths between the sprawling blocks of white tents, criss-crossed
1:39.9	by washing lines and pink boogan velia flowers, we could hear children screaming.
	...

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