Yazidi Refugees
Blind in both eyes, her bones sharply folded across a thin mat, Zarif sits in a quiet corner of the refugee camp of Serres, Greece. Zarif is a Yazidi elder. Her family says she is 116.
Ask anyone at Serres camp the date they were driven from their homes, and you will receive the same answer: August 3, 2014. That's when ISIS launched its genocidal assault on Mt. Sinjar, murdering and enslaving tens of thousands of Iraqi Yazidis. Zarif's family carried her up the mountain, where they camped until it was safe to escape through Turkey.
Zarif has dreamed of resettlement in Europe since that day. But now, her strength withering, she may not live to achieve it.
"All our lives, we haven't known a month without problems," said Barakat, 43, Zarif's grandson. Illness, a snake infestation and a lack of medical support in Serres have compounded the family's distress.
Barakat's 11-year-old daughter suffers from severe insomnia, he said. "Some of her friends were taken as slaves. We saw other children murdered before our eyes on Mount Sinjar. It's one thing to hear these things, but it's another to see them."
Zarif says she owes her long life to her supportive Yazidi community. Today, thousands of Yazidis are struggling to survive in precarious refugee camps while countries hesitate to accept them.