Dashni Morad. (Credit: John Wright, February 2016)As the battle for Mosul nears its conclusion, the fate of civilian survivors remains uncertain. The Kurdish singer and humanitarian Dashni Morad, whose youth was defined by conflict in the region, aims to highlight the psychological scars of living under a brutal regime. In 2014, Morad raised funds for refugee camps outside Mosul, where she witnessed the impact of three years of war on displaced children. Tutored only in fear, the children are aggressive even in play: “it made me so upset to see that a kid can be taken from its inner child”, she says. “It is the worst thing you can do to a human being – to take away that magical world”.
Morad’s tranquil demeanour belies her childhood trauma. At the age of five, in 1991, her family fled from Iraqi bombardment of their hometown Sulaymaniyah into the mountains near the border with Iran. There were no camps in the region, and Morad tells harrowing stories of the perilous conditions – she ran behind aid helicopters in order to catch food and medicine, and witnessed death at an early age. Her father travelled to Turkey, then swam to Greece and from there walked to Germany, before settling in Holland, where he was reunited with his family after 18 months without contact. Dashni grew up in the small town of Didam, 18 kilometers east of Arnhem; she speaks fluent Dutch, Kurdish and English, and a smattering of German and Arabic.
