- Title: Iraq Yazidis rebuild shrine destroyed by Islamic State
- Date: 9th August 2017
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) SHRINE SUPERVISOR, SHAKER HAIDAR AL-MUJEWAR, SAYING: "They (Yazidis) left their homes. My house is close but we did not go to rebuild or clean our homes, the shrines are the most important. We have rebuilt almost eight shrines." SHRINE SUPERVISOR, SHAKER HAIDAR, AND YAZIDI RESEARCHER, SALEM AL-RASHIDANI, STEPPING INTO SHRINE AL-MUJEWAR, AL-RASHIDANI AND WORKER IN SHRINE PREPARING FOR PRAYER VARIOUS OF AL-MUJEWAR LEANING DOWN AND LIGHTING THREAD
- Embargoed: 23rd August 2017 15:48
- Keywords: Iraq Yazidis return Bashiqa Iraq Yazidis Yazidi Islamic State Iraq Islamic State return Yazidi shrine rebuilding
- Location: BASHIQA, IRAQ
- City: BASHIQA, IRAQ
- Country: Iraq
- Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace
- Reuters ID: LVA0036TFQ0K5
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Yazidis in a town near Mosul are hoping to celebrate their first religious festival in three years come September in a shrine being rebuilt after Islamic State swept through three years ago.
Men and boys gather everyday at the Malak Miran shrine in Bashiqa to reconstruct the dome blown to rubble by the militants when they overran the plain of Nineveh in the summer of 2014.
"Islamic State blew up the shrine, as it did with many other shrines. Currently, we are rebuilding with Yazidis themselves. Everyone here is volunteering with the construction and there is no financial return," said Yazidi researcher Salem Al-Rashidani.
The reconstruction is funded by private donations from Yazidi families and the people who returned to the town after it was reclaimed from the militants.
"They (Yazidis) left their homes. My house is close but we did not go to rebuild or clean our homes, the shrines are the most important. We have rebuilt almost eight shrines," said the shrine supervisor Shaker Haidar Al-Mujewar.
The Yazidis are the community that suffered the most under Islamic State's rule. More than 3,000 Yazidis, mostly from Sinjar to the west of Bashiqa, were killed - with more than half shot, beheaded or burnt alive - and about 6,800 taken for sex slaves or fighters.
Yazidis in Bashiqa were able to escape before Islamic State seized the town and the militants were driven out in November 2016, about a month after the start of the offensive to retake Mosul, the northern city used by the militants as their capital. Many of Bashiqa's families are still living in camps.
Reconstruction of the town's shrine, a cubic hall for prayers with a cone-shaped dome on top, began two months ago.
The volunteers gather from time to time for prayers in the unfinished temple, gathering by candle light to recite prayers in a Kurdish dialect.
"Two hundred and fifty are volunteering without pay. They are serving our shrines without money and we are happy. We are rebuilding because goodness always prevails over evil. We are the people of goodness and we are rebuilding what the evil (people) have destroyed. We represent good people. They are evil. They destroy and we rebuild," said resident and volunteer Marwan Allouba.
The town is now under the control of the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who helped take it back from Islamic State.
The United Nations human rights Commission of Inquiry has declared the killings of thousands of Yazidis to be a genocide. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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