A unique research project out of King’s University College in London, Ont., has given a a face and a voice to Yazidis who settled in Canada, a decade after Islamists attempted to eradicate them from this world.

Initiated Sept. 16 by Dr. Lisa McLean and Dr. Carrie Traher, professors of Thanatology (scientific study of death, dying, grief and loss) at the liberal arts university federated with Western University, the “photovoice” exhibit gives voice to Yazidis, a minority religious group from northern Iraq, now re-settled in Canada.  

A grief symposium held at the same time, and co-hosted by McLean and Traher, addressed death and grief and explored ways to develop compassionate communities that are equipped to respond to diverse experiences of loss.

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Through photos with accompanying texts contributed by 13 local Yazidi women, the photovoice exhibit powerfully conveyed their lingering pain and sorrow as the remaining survivors of a genocidal campaign the terrorist organization ISIS unleashed against them when their northern Iraq homeland was overrun in 2014.  

Notorious for their sadistic acts of cruelty, ISIS members rampaged across the country, maiming, torturing, enslaving and murdering their victims, desecrating and destroying churches and temples, sending shockwaves around a world that woke up, in the summer of 2014, to an unfolding genocide against Yazidis and other religious minorities, including Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriacs, the indigenous Christians of the region.

Once the subject of international headlines, but now largely forgotten by the world media, 400,000 Yazidis, and 200,000 Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriacs, fled the territory where they had lived in peace for millennia. Today, 10 years following the ISIS conquest, and five after its 2017 military defeat by a U.S.-led coalition, they are struggling to rebuild their lives, scattered in diasporas around the world.

Canada has welcomed over 1,400 Yazidis, with the majority resettled in Toronto, London, Winnipeg and Calgary. Practising a monotheistic religion that incorporates elements of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, they had been persecuted for centuries by those opposed to their beliefs. 

Participants in the research project, who had photos of their choice displayed in the exhibit, said it has been a therapeutic exercise.

“I liked the idea of the photovoices,” Layla (last name withheld to protect her privacy), a single mother with seven children, told The Catholic Register through a translator.

“We have lost everything — homes, loved ones, lands, livelihoods, and all we can do now is to spread our story, make the world aware of what happened to us. What ISIS did to us could be done to anyone.” 

Layla had contributed a photo of her missing family members, because deep in her heart she yearns to know what became of them — the ones that died in ISIS captivity and were buried in nameless mass graves, and others who survived but are left behind in Iraq, living miserable lives in squalid refugee camps, longing to be reunited with their loved ones.

Layla lived under ISIS captivity for two years, and like all ISIS captives, suffered daily beatings, torture and sexual abuse. Held up for ransom, she was fortunate to have family members able to pay the price for her release.

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Sahira (last name also withheld), another Yazidi single mother with two sons, participated in the project and echoes the same thought. 

“It gave me a great opportunity to go out there and share my story,” she said, adding that raising awareness of the Yazidi genocide and its consequences is important to her. 

She recalled the nightmare of her days in captivity, saying she is grateful to be in Canada, because she now has safety and security, enough food to eat, medical care and is no longer suffering from fainting spells as in the early days of her arrival here. She is also happy her children can look forward to a bright future.  

But despite all this, she is constantly grieving, Sahira said. 

“I will always live with a broken heart as long as I don’t know what happened to members of my family who are still missing and unaccounted for.” 

Both MacLean and Traher emphasized the importance of closure to the healing process for these survivors.

“It’s what the pioneering American therapist Pauline Boss called ‘ambiguous’ loss,” MacLean explained, adding that it describes the deep anxiety and sorrow suffered by Yazidis and others in a similar situation, who are consumed by worries and constantly haunted by the question of what became of their loved ones. 

“There is no closure in it for them, and no opportunity to participate in religious and social mourning rituals like funerals.”

Traher said the Yazidis were discouraged by the news that the mandate of the UN team investigating crimes committed by ISIS had come to an end on Sept. 17, and the Iraqi government has decided against extending it, thus reducing the chances of finding answers to their questions.

Both Sahira and Layla said their dearest wish is to have their living relatives join them in Canada, and that they hope the Canadian government will facilitate family reunification.

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Eman Al Sayyad, program operations manager at the newcomer settlement services branch of the South London Neighbourhood Resource Centre, one of the panelists at the grief symposium, has another wish list based on insights she gained from the interactions at the event.

“I would like to see more specialized mental health programs for Yazidis,” she said, pointing out that healing from such deeply painful experiences requires plenty of support. “They also need language instruction tailored to their unique needs, because so many of them have to start from scratch, having had no education in their own language and are not used to sitting for long hours in a classroom.”