Jun 29, 2015

The Yazidi camp just outside Diyarbakir is very animated these days. As new groups arrive at the camp, where about 5,000 Yazidis who have fled from the Islamic State (IS) live, some are still trying to leave. There are incessant arguments between the Yazidis and the camp officials who are trying to stop them from leaving. But Yazidis are determined to go. Those who can’t find vehicles are walking under the searing sun to the Diyarbakir bus terminal, where they try to charter buses to take them to the Turkish-Bulgarian border.

In a park about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the camp, four families wait for a bus. Women sleep under trees. Children run about. They say they had to walk for hours because no vehicle would take them. Among the refugees are Yazidi official Hikmet Salim and his wife and three children. He said life in tents had become unbearable.

Salim told Al-Monitor, “They rescued us from Sinjar and brought us to the camp. They have been looking after us for a year. We will not forget their kindness, but we are now forgotten. Nobody is helping us anymore. We want to go to Europe and for them to see how we have to live. There is no one more desperate than us. We have suffered everything, but we still have no rights. We’re going to Europe so that nobody would bother us and use us as political tools. Someone should help us to reach Europe. We will go, demonstrate and show ourselves. Maybe then they will receive us.”

Others in the group included Yazidi cleric Sheikh Hayri Awdi, who said the Yazidis want to live in a place where their religion is not questioned. "If you ask people here what is a Yazidi, they won’t know. They call us heretics. We want to go to a place where they won’t ask our children their religion and where they won’t be labeled heretics. We have been told that Bulgaria will open its border to us.”

Awdi said many people escaped from the camp on foot after officials closed the gates to stop them from leaving.