Êzîdîs in Amed Metropolitan Municipality’s Yenişehir camp are having difficulties because of state hospitals’ refusal to treat them due to the fact that they do not stay in state-controlled AFAD camps. 92 years-old Xidirê Xelaf is one of such Êzîdîs and his condition gets worse because he cannot receive medical treatment.

Xelaf’s son Rizgar Xidir Xelaf spoke to ANF and asked how he could bear to watch his father wither away. Xelaf stated that his father did not deserve to die like this and asked state officials to allow his father’s treatment.

92 years-old Xidirê Xelaf is one of the many Êzîdîs who are in critical condition and await treatment. Xelaf escaped from Shengal in August 2014 and cannot get treatment today because of AKP policies and preventions. Xelaf’s life is in danger merely because he and his family do not stay at a state-controlled AFAD camp.

THOSE WHO COULD NOT ESCAPE BECAME THE VICTIMS OF ISIS

Xelaf family is one of the many families that escaped from Siba Şêx Xıdır village; the first village near Shengal that ISIS had targeted last summer. ISIS had entered the village late at night, massacred civilians, and forced families to escape from their homes. Rizgar Xidir Xelaf said that they informed the peshmerga base near their village about an imminent ISIS attack after seeing car headlights around midnight on the night of ISIS takeover. Peshmergas told villagers to not abandon their houses and wait for the help that would arrive soon, but villagers decided to go to bed because no peshmerge help arrived afterall. Xelaf woke up around 3 am after a big explosion and said that there was chaos in the village due to the ISIS occupation. Xelaf took inside his father, who had been sleeping outside, and began to hide until the chaos ended. In the early morning, Xelaf took his father and mother and excaped from the village with a pick-up truck. Xelaf noted that those who could not escape became the victims of ISIS.

‘WE WERE ABADONED TO DIE’

Xelaf stated that their village had 5 thousand houses in which 19 thousand people lived, but no peshmergas or Iraqi soldiers came to their rescue despite the notice villagers had given regarding an imminent ISIS occupation. Xelaf said that they had asked peshmergas to provide villagers with guns if they were not going to send reinforcements, but peshmergas responded by saying that nothing would happen to the civilians. Xelaf noted that they were literally abandoned to die.

Rizgar Xidir Xelaf took his father and mother to his brother’s house in Shengal city center, but the family had to escape from here too due to the ISIS siege on the town. Xelaf brought his family to Zaxo and said that there were more than 700 thousand Êzidîs in Zaxo who were trampling one another for a little bit of water. Xelaf and his family tried to go to Duhok but returned to Zaxo after learning that ISIS was beheading children and enslaving women near Duhok. Xelaf and his family soon left the Bacide Kendala camp in Zaxo, which lacked water and food, and came to Roboskî. Xelaf noted that 4 people held his father with the help of a blanket during the 8 hours-long journey from Zaxo to Roboskî, and the Xelaf family came to Amed after staying in Roboskî for one night.

‘LET MY FATHER BE TREATED’

Xelaf stated that his father had gone through a prostate operation in Duhok before the war, but his condition was good back then. After the ISIS attack, Xelaf’s father became confined to a bed due to his pains and inability to move. Xelaf had recently taken his father to the state hospital in Şırnak, and the shots his father received there eased his pains a little. But after Amed state hospital’s refusal to treat Êzidîs who do not stay in AFAD camps, his father’s condition got much worse. Xelaf said that they could not bear to witness his father wither away, and demanded the immediate treatment of his father. Xelaf noted that the Yenişehir camp embraced them despite the limited resources it had, but state hospitals decided to abandon Êzidî patients to die instead of offering them treatment.