Ethnic Kurds in US traumatized by crisis in Iraq
Haider Elias boarded a plane to the United States from Iraq five years ago, leaving a life of war, ethnic violence and, as a Yazidi, religious persecution.
The Yazidis, ethnic Kurds, are an ancient religious minority whose faith, neither Christian nor Muslim, has roots in Zoroastrianism. Because he had worked as a translator for U.S. special operations forces during the war in Iraq, Elias was able to immigrate to the U.S. He now lives in southwest Houston, in close proximity to about 20 other Yazidi families.
His life here has given him ample opportunity. The 32-year-old father of three works as a translator, but has also earned a medical assistant's degree and even dreams of medical school.
But everything changed in August, when terrorist fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria swept through the Yazidis' ancestral homeland in northwestern Iraq, murdering some and driving thousands of others from their villages. Elias started receiving panicked calls from relatives and friends. They were fleeing toward Mount Sinjar, hoping to hide and find safety. His younger brother, Falah, was one person he managed to speak to. Elias could hear him hurrying and out of breath as sounds of screaming and gunfire trickled through the phone.
"Call my dad, please, and then call me back," Falah told him, before they hung up.
Minutes later, he received another call. ISIS fighters had just shot Falah in the head. He was dead.
"It was the saddest news I have ever received," said Elias, who returned Monday from Iraq, where the Yazidi community remains in crisis, with as many as 10,000 stranded in the Sinjar Mountains and thousands more in refugee camps.
"It was very frustrating and very sad," said Elias, a tall, slightly balding man with piercing eyes and a quiet voice.
He'd visited the camps, met with Iraqi officials and seen displaced friends and family living in unfinished buildings or in makeshift tents. He distributed blankets and infant formula, along with some socks and space heaters.
"It was very cold, and it was very hard for those families to live under that climate," he said. "Many were using gas-powered heaters to heat their tents, which has led to many of the homes catching fire."
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Ethnic Kurds in US traumatized by crisis in Iraq