ISIS fighters tore Kamo Zandinan's 4-year-old daughter Sonya from her arms in 2014. Zandinan, now a refugee in Canada, recently returned to Iraq to meet the 10-year-old girl she believes is Sonya.
Like other spring holidays, Sere Sal is about fertility and new life. For Yazidi refugees who fled genocide at the hands of ISIS in Iraq, cooking the foods of the holiday is a way to re-create home.
Some villagers considered it improper for girls to go to school. Now, after surviving the reign of ISIS, young Yazidi women in Iraq's Kurdistan region are getting an education.
His phone rarely stops ringing. Most calls and messages are from other Yazidis in Iraq's Kurdistan region, asking for help to find their relatives. Others are from people threatening to kill him.
With the Islamic State pushed back, Iraq's Yazidis are returning to their villages — and to mass graves. Now, they guard the remains and are calling on the U.N. to document the killings.
The remote town of Snuny was recently liberated from ISIS. But aside from Kurdish and Yazidi militia men, very few people have ventured back. There are no services, and the ISIS threat is still real.
Led by a celebrated Yazidi fighter, a small band of Kurdish peshmerga survived a months-long ISIS onslaught. Unlike others in Syria and Iraq, this sacred place still stands, nearly unscathed.
