Khanke Refugee Camp

Khanke refugee camp is located on the outskirts on Duhok, in Iraqi Kurdistan. It harbours 635 yazidi families, about 4000 people. It is run by Iraq’s Kurdistan authorities, together with UNHCR.

All the photographs were taken in January 2015.

The Yazidis are a religious minority group that follows a 4000 years old faith, with unique beliefs and rituals.
They have been repeatedly targeted by jihadists, who believe them to worship the devil.

Yazidis in the Khanke camp were forced to flee their homes because ISIS persecuted them in northern Iraqi town of Sinjar,
near the Syrian border. Many of them, who managed to escape the killings, are still hiding in Mount Sinjar.

Grandmother of seven, this woman is now in charge of all of them.
Her son is in a wheelchair, two of the children are injured and his wife,
mother of the children, is dead: a water load distributed by humanitarian aids fell upon them.

Many children are separated from their families, not even knowing who is alive and who is not: there is a number of mass graves
but not enough technological instruments to analyse them.

Children separated from their families are taken care of by other families in the camp.
It often happens that adolescent boys and girls find themselves in charge of youngsters.

ISIS systematically kills yazidi men and kidnaps, rapes, sells women. Some of them have managed to escape captivity,
many are dead, many are still in jihadists’ hands, used as slaves or sex toys.