SHINGAL, Iraq — Four-and-a-half years after the Islamic State (ISIS) group massacred people in Shingal, one of the few survivors Ilyas Salih recalls how his entire family including his 87-year-old mother and ninth-grade son were murdered.
"This is the entire family. 13 are missing, in the hands of Daesh terrorists," he told Rudaw using another term for ISIS. "This young son of mine was born in 1999. He was either 14 or 15 years old He was in Grade 9, right before final exams.
A United Nations team with the support of the Iraqi federal and Kurdistan regional governments are starting to exhume the first of at least 35 mass grave sites in Shingal.
"These two are also my sons. He was a teacher for Kurdish in the Shingal Education [Department]," Salih said.
Out of his family, only five people survived. Four are still in the hands of ISIS.
"This is my mother. She was 87 years old. She raised me and breastfed me. What had she done? What was her crime? She was 87 and elderly. She hadn’t hurt anyone," he added.
This is the first time Salih has returned to his home since ISIS committed its genocide against the Yezidi people.
"They took individuals like my wife and mother, those over 40, to the Solakh Institute. There was a fishery there. They killed them there. Some of them were still alive, moving their hands. They buried them with a shovel anyway," Salih explained.
Kocho is surrounded by mass graves. An estimated 400 villagers are buried in those graves. About 600 people from the village are still missing.
"They lined us up and executed us. To make sure everyone was dead, they came back again," Salih said. "Whoever they heard making sounds, they shot again. They came back to us again to make sure none of us were alive."
Reporting by Tahsin Qasim