Marcus Wiechmann

The Yazidis

The Lalish temple complex is the holiest Yazidi site where sacred shrines and caves with tombs are located. A Feraş (servant) who is unmarried and youth lights every day 365 candles in certain places all over the temples and is accompanied by an older man and woman.

The Yazidis - Where to go from here?

since 2015 (ongoing)

When I was a kid I played together with Yazidis in a multicultural football team in Oldenburg, Germany. Already then I was aware of their religion and their struggle as a minority in the Middle-East, however I later left the city and I only heard about Yazidis again in 2014.

On the 3rd August 2014 the terrorists of the Islamic State perpetrated an attack on the Yazidi people in Shingal, North Iraq, which displaced 300.000 people and claimed thousands of victims that were massacred or taken in captivity. Since then the internally displaced persons are forced to stay in refugee camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq .

Yazidism is a 4000 year old religion from the Middle East which originated in ancient Mesopotamia, a region where humans for the first time settled in communities during the Neolithic Revolution. Their belief is monotheistic and syncretistic and it has simmilarities with the Islam, Christianity and ancient Mesopotamian religions like Zoroastronism. For a long time they have been stigmatized as infidels and devil worshipers due to lack of knowledge of their religious practices.

Even though the Islamic State is defeated, there are now territorial hegemony conflicts between the central Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) as the Shingal region belongs to one of the disputed territories between Kurds and Arabs. Now the region is controlled by Iraqi forces again as the KRG withdrew its troops at the end of 2017. However, the Yazidis as a minority are still caught in the middle of this conflict without a possibility to change anything about it.

In 2014 I met Mammo Kasem, a Yazidi who fled from Shingal to Germany due to death threats he had received from extremists even before the genocide happened. His family fled from Shingal while the Islamic State attacked them and Mammo Kasem went through some horrific times as he was thousands of miles away from his family without any contact. Luckily nobody was harmed and they found shelter in a refugee camp in Turkey. There I started documenting their situation and how Mammo Kasem´s family later came to Germany: this was the starting point of my long-term photoessay about the Yazidis.

Since then I continously work on my photographic essay which should give a comprehensive view about the Yazidis. I visited religious places and festivals which are important for their culture. I met people and visited places which have been affected by the events in August 2014 and documented their stories and conditions. My approach is to create a visual narrative about Yazidi people: their identity, their religion and the status quo of the Yazidi community.

16/02/2017 - Lalish, Iraq: The Lalish temple complex is the holiest Yazidi site where sacred shrines and caves
with tombs are located. A Feraş (servant) who is unmarried and youth lights every
day 365 candles in certain places all over the temples and is accompanied by an older man and woman.

16/02/2017 - Lalish, Iraq: The religious servants walk through the temple site in Lalish and bring fire to different tombs. Fire is an important part of their religion. They are perceived as devil worshipers or heretics by other religions because they praise it.

19/04/2017 - Lalish, Iraq:
During sunrise an attendant of the Yazidi New Year Carşema Sor starts his day with
a prayer in Lalish. At dawn and dusk, the Yazidis turn to the sun and speak their
prayers. The prayers are called „dua“ and there are certain prayer times for morning, evening and other occassions like religious festivals etc.

08/02/2016 - Sharya, Iraq: Mrs. Haydar and her children are living in Sharya refugee camp nowadays. In August
2014 they fled from Shingal when militants of the Islamic State attacked their city. She lost contact with her husband during the chaotic situation and haven´t heard from
him ever since.

22/11/2015 - Sharya, Iraq: Since autumn 2014 there are 16.340 internally displaced people living on 0,56 km² in the official camp which is located beside the village of Sharya. Numbers are taken from Board of Relief and Humanities Affairs agency in Duhok.

19/09/2016 - Sharya, Iraq: In Sharya approximately 3.000 people stay in informal camps all over the village.
Here seen is Najla Hussin who lives in Sharya with her parents and nine siblings since 2014.

19/09/2016 - Sharya, Iraq: Najla Hussin spends time with her sister, her cousin (right) and her friend Saadon Dawod (left).

10/02/2016 - Sharya, Iraq: Saadon Dawod lives with his family in two tents of which he shares one with his four brothers. He was able to attend a local school in Sharya village and later that year started to study Pharmakology at Dohuk University. When his study is finished he wants to return to Shingal and work in the only running hospital there.

08/02/2016 - Sharya, Iraq: Since 2014 the majority of internally displaced Yazidis found shelter in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

08/02/2016 - Sharya, Iraq: In the camp for IDPs in Sharya some Yazidis run cafes to make money. Young people from the camp meet there, smoke hookah and can use WiFi as long as there is electricity available. Several blackouts for some hours are usual each day.

17/09/2016 - Dugure, Iraq: For the first time after 14 months Saadon Dawod visits the former home of his family and is here seen in the bedroom of his brother.

23/02/2017 - Shingal, Iraq: The city of Shingal was destroyed during the liberation from the Islamic State in 2015. It was under control of the KRG untill the end of 2017 as it was then reclaimed by the Iraqi government with the support of Hashd al-Shaabi forces, an Iranian backed militia operating in Iraq.

16/09/2016 - Snuny, Iraq: Saadon and his friend Najiman sit on the roof of an uncle´s house in Snuny and drink beers. He isn´t able to visit Sinjar often since his family was displaced.

17/09/2016 - Dugure, Iraq: Saadon is playing on a saz guitar in one of the few shops in the village of Dugure, which is nearly deserted because only some people came back yet. For some time the people were affected by KRG‘s restrictions on the movement of goods into and out of Sinjar as stated in a HRW report from 12/2016.

23/02/2017 - Bakera, Iraq: The family of Mr. Hasso still lives in a village at the foot of Mount Shingal and not in the villages on the Nineveh plains. All these villages on the plain field were located as well on the foot of the mountain but Saddam Hussein ordered to relocate them in the 70´s.

23/02/2017 - Bakera, Iraq: Faqir Hasso with one of the children of his deceased son. On 3rd August 2014 people
fled to Bakera where Mr. Hasso is living at the foot of Mount Shingal. He had stored
water and food as he knew an attack by the Islamic State would happen one day after they captured the city Mosul in June 2014.

16/09/2016 - Sherfedin, Iraq: Sherfedin is an important pilgrimage site for Yazidis. During the Islamic State´s attack it was protected with simple weapons by the inhabitants. Nowadays it´s even more a significant place for the Yazidis as they were here victorious in their battle against the Islamic State in August 2014.

22/02/2017 - Khana Sor, Iraq: Inside most Yazidi temples cloths of seven different colors are hanging on the walls.
The seven colors represent the seven holy archangels in Yazidism. The knots were
made by former visitors and symbolize a wish they made into it that waits to get opened and released by someone else.

22/02/2017 - Khana Sor, Iraq: Jalal Haskany visits the grave of his uncle who lost his life while he tried to pass the Aegan Sea from Turkey to Greece in a boat. The Yazidi people have their own graveyards of their tribe where the deceased get buried.

18/04/2017 - Lalish, Iraq: During the „Carşema Sor“ New Year festival thousands of people make a pilgrimage to the central sanctuary of the Yazidis. Every Yazidi should make a pilgrimage to Lalish at least once in his lifetime.

18/04/2017 - Lalish, iraq: A group of women freed from ISIS imprisonment are led by the NGO Yazda through Lalish at the day of Yazidi New Year. Many young women who were captured by ISIS during the 3rd August 2014 attacks were taken to Raqqa and Mosul and sold as slaves among IS members.

18/04/2017 - Lalish, Iraq: At „Carşema Sor“ Yazidis light candlewicks and recite prayers after that. Fire is an important part of their belief and they have been attacked and persecuted for that since ever.

Where to go from here?

handcrafted photobook

60 pages