HAIFFA HASAN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On August 8, 2014, Haiffa Hasan and her husband were at a friend’s house when they heard that ISIS was about to attack Sinjar, Iraq, their home town. 

 

“I was trying to tell my husband and he didn’t believe it because in the morning they were perfectly fine and they said there was nothing going on,” Hasan said. But at 1:30 a.m. they got ahold of Hasan’s husband’s family and they said they were on the run.

 

 “We called about 50 times before my husband’s family answered.  It was his dad’s phone but his brother answered.  He said, “Hang up.  We’re running.  That’s the last thing we heard from them for four days.”

 

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Hasan is a Yazidi, an ethno-religious group from northern Iraq that is being highly persecuted by ISIS.  She was born in a refugee camp in Syria where her family fled from their home in northern Iraq after Saddam Hussein declared that all men must fight in the Iraq-Kuwait war, or die.  Her father refused.

 

After nine years in Syria, her family was finally given clearance to move to Lincoln, Nebraska, which is now the largest Yazidi resettlement city in the United States.  At the time they came, Hasan and her family were one of the first Yazidi families to resettle in Lincoln.

 

Hasan remembers struggling in school when she first got to Lincoln.  Her family was poor,

barely middle class and they depended on Catholic Social Services for most things.

 

“We didn’t have much clothes, so we would wear the same clothes two or three days in a

row,” Hasan said.  “We would come home and my mom would wash them by hand in the

morning and then when we would go to school the kids would always make fun of us. It

was hard because we always got bullied.” 

 

Now, Hasan is 22 years old and married with a baby boy.  She and her family are one of 170 Yazidi families who call Lincoln home although their family and friends are all back in Iraq.

 

The current war ISIS is committing against the Yazidis is the world’s 74th genocide against their people, and it is by far the worst.

 

“They are beheading the men, it’s either convert or die,” Hasan said.  “They are taking the girls and the ladies and using them as sex slaves, raping them and selling them off for as little as $10 to Muslim men.  They are taking the kids and brainwashing them or killing them in front of their parent’s eyes saying, ‘Convert or we will kill your kids.’”

 

This August, ISIS made their way to Sinjar, the hometown of Hasan’s in laws.  Hasan and many other Yazidis in Lincoln heard that there was going to be a massacre and could only sit and watch the updates coming from their family and friends through Facebook.

 

“We didn’t sleep all night,” Hasan said.  Her husband called his family continuously with no answer as ISIS had broken all the cell towers.  It was four days until they found out if their family had survived.

 

When they were finally able to make contact, Hasan discovered that her husband’s family was alive and living in a school classroom. They had walked over nine hours to escape and had taken turns carrying their 80-year-old grandfather and young kids.

 

They are considered some of the lucky ones.

 

“They are living in one classroom with seven families and each family has about 10 kids. But compared to others they have it pretty good because others are living on the streets.”

 

Food is rare.  Seven families share a small camping stove and are lucky if they get even two pieces of bread per day.

 

Hasan and her husband have applied for visas for their family, but they have not been accepted.  They cannot leave their country so their only hope is to stay ahead of ISIS;

fleeing each city before ISIS comes to massacre everyone living there.

 

Hasan and her Yazidi friends in Lincoln are pleading for the American government to

save their people and they need American citizens to stand beside them.

 

“Just getting the word out there, getting the public’s attention, helping us raise awareness

that they need help,” Hasan said.

 

The Yazidi community has held many protests and has contacted government officials.

Since August, all celebrations have been canceled, including weddings, funerals, New

Year’s parties, Christmas parties and Easter parties.

 

Hasan feels hopeless because she hasn’t seen much change in the situation since August. 

 

“It just seems like the world is staying quiet while all this happens to all these kids and ladies,” Hasan said.  “All these kids are being taught to be terrorists and all these women are being raped and forced into sex slavery and the world isn’t doing much about it.”