The Mountain

After that, we almost went with our relatives and neighbors to the mountain for fear of ISIS. But before we reached the mountain Shingal my father decided to drive directly to Kurdistan through Arabs villages and that was very risky. We almost got caught by the villagers. It's was horrible. We saw our death but finally, we made it to Kurdistan. Many of my relatives and neighbors went to a mountain without water, without food, without clothes or shoes, without anything. We were in the summer season and the sun was harsh. They stayed on the mountain for one week and they said that “a lot of old people died because they couldn’t walk in the shining sun, and a lot of children died because they didn’t have any milk or water.” One family of 8 or 10 people shared one bottle of water. A lot of girls killed themselves for fear of being taken by ISIS. After they stayed on the mountain for one week, PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) and YPG (Kurdish fighters) came and helped them. They found one road off the mountain that was safe and took them on it, leading them to the Syrian border. On the way, they said, “ they were surprised by terrorists.” They fired on them and hit a lot. After that, they tried again to get to the Syrian border, this time on foot. they said “the road was very long and so difficult. When they finally arrived at the border, they put them in a large convoy truck and they went to Kurdistan, Iraq to us.