Demotix/John Rooney. All rights reserved.From where we are positioned, the refugee camp appears enormous. Big, heated tents are situated next to each other in rows. Bread is made in a traditional earth oven, several metres beneath the ground. The dough is stuck to the clay walls and baked with the lid attached to the top of the oven. When the bread is done, it plunges downwards and hits a grate placed inside the oven.
We run into girls on their way to school. A girl wearing a pink sweater and leopard-patterned corduroys plays football with a tin can. Two girls sit behind a tent, one of them combing the other's hair. Next to a man who sells clothing, children in army sweatpants play. They smile and fool about while I take their pictures, and they communicate with signals, which, for a split second, recall the sign gesticulated by ISIS fighters pointing towards the sky and Allah.
The impression I get is similar to that of a visit to a Christian refugee camp in Erbil, a few hours south of the Yezidi camp in Dohuk. Tens of thousands of Christians fled the village of Qaragosh, which was seized by ISIS in August 2014. The residents ran out of water and electricity supplies following the arrival of ISIS in the province capital of Mosul. Still, the 50,000 Christians believed they were safe. Women and men reveal the sense of horror that proliferated as ISIS drew closer to their village. One of the refugees recounts:
