15 August 2014. Kocho – The Bleeding Heart of Ezidis
There are dates that belong in history books, dates that belong in the memories of a people, and then there are dates that become wounds — wounds that never truly close, no matter how many years pass. For the Ezidis of Kocho, 15 August 2014 is one of those dates. It is a date that carries the memory of murdered fathers, sons, brothers and grandfathers; of mothers who watched their families disappear; of children who were left without their parents; and of women and girls whose lives were violently torn apart.
Kocho is an Ezidi village located in the Sinjar District, south of the Sinjar Mountains in Nineveh Governorate, Iraq. It was a place far from many of the other Ezidi villages, surrounded largely by Sunni Arab communities. The people of Kocho had lived there for generations and had established relationships with the surrounding communities, treating the people around them with respect. Most of the people of Kocho were farmers. At that time, farming was one of the few jobs available to Ezidis in the area, and the people lived their lives simply, working their land, raising their children, caring for their families and practising their faith. They could never have imagined that their village would soon become the scene of one of the most horrific massacres committed against the Ezidi people.
On 3 August 2014, ISIS easily took control of Kocho. Because the village was isolated and separated from many of the other Ezidi villages, its people did not know that ISIS was coming until it was too late. They could not flee to the mountains, and they could not escape anywhere else. The roads were no longer safe, and the village was surrounded. Kocho became trapped, leaving its people to live through days of uncertainty and unimaginable fear, not knowing what was waiting for them. For thirteen days, they could do almost nothing but wait. They asked for help and appealed to the Iraqi government and the international community, including the United States, hoping that someone would come to protect them. But the help they desperately needed never came. They were left in the hands of terrorists, forced to fight for their own survival while the outside world failed to reach them.
During those thirteen days, ISIS continued to impose its control over the village. Fighters went from door to door asking for guns and weapons and demanding obedience. They repeatedly told the people of Kocho to persuade the Ezidis who had fled to the mountain to return, promising that they would be safe. But the people of Kocho did not obey those commands. They refused to become the reason other Ezidis would be brought back into the hands of ISIS. They knew they were trapped, but they still tried to protect others. Eventually, the ISIS commander came to the people of Kocho and gave them an ultimatum: they had three days to convert to Islam or suffer the consequences. Three days. Three days to decide whether to abandon the faith and identity that had belonged to their people for generations or refuse and face whatever ISIS had planned for them. The people of Kocho did not convert. They remained Ezidi.
Then came 15 August 2014.
The people of Kocho were gathered together. Men, women, children and elderly people were brought under the control of ISIS. The village that had once been filled with ordinary life was now filled with fear. Families were together for what would become the last time. ISIS separated the women and children from the men, telling the women and children to go upstairs while the men were kept downstairs. The people were told that if they converted, perhaps they would be allowed to live or return to the mountain. But they had already refused.
Then the men were taken away in trucks.
The women watched them leave. They watched their husbands, fathers, sons, brothers and relatives disappear into the trucks, not knowing that many of them would never return. Then they heard the gunshots. One after another, the sounds reached the women who had been left behind, and they understood what was happening. Their men were being killed. There are moments when words are not enough to describe what a human being can feel. Imagine being a mother and hearing the gunshots after your sons have been taken away. Imagine being a wife and realising that the man you watched leave in a truck will never come home. Imagine being a child and hearing the sound that tells you your father has been murdered.
Among those taken were the brothers of Nadia Murad, a survivor from Kocho who would later become one of the world’s strongest voices for the Ezidi people. Nadia has spoken about seeing her brothers taken away and witnessing the horror of what happened to them. Their deaths were part of the massacre of Kocho, where men and boys were systematically murdered. These were not soldiers fighting a war. They were farmers, fathers, sons, brothers and grandfathers. They were ordinary people whose lives were taken because they were Ezidi and because they refused to abandon who they were.
After the men had been taken away and killed, ISIS came for the women and girls. They were forced onto buses and taken to Solagh (سولاخ). There, the families were torn apart again. Women, girls and elderly women were separated according to age and other distinctions. The older women, including those who wore traditional white clothing, were separated from the younger girls. Many of those elderly women were later killed. The younger women and girls were taken by bus to Mosul, where they were subjected to a system of slavery and trafficking. They were treated as property, sold and exchanged, and some were later taken to Syria. Mothers were separated from daughters. Sisters were separated from sisters. Families that had been together only hours earlier were destroyed in front of one another.
The mind cannot easily comprehend what ISIS did to the people of Kocho. It is almost impossible to imagine the fear inside those buses, the confusion of children who did not understand why they were being taken away, or the pain of mothers who did not know whether they would ever see their children again. Girls who had been living ordinary lives only days earlier were suddenly being treated as slaves. Women were stripped of their freedom and dignity. Elderly people were killed. Men were taken away and murdered. Families were broken apart, and a village was turned into a place of unimaginable horror.
But Kocho must never be remembered only for the horror inflicted upon it. It must also be remembered for the courage of its people. When ISIS demanded that they abandon their faith, many refused. They knew the danger. They knew they were surrounded. They knew that there was almost nowhere left to escape. Yet they did not surrender their identity. They remained Ezidi, even when remaining Ezidi meant facing death. For that courage, we live today. For that courage, we remember them. And for that courage, we are proud of them, even as we mourn them.
But pride cannot erase the sorrow. Nothing is enough for the people of Kocho. No apology is enough. No statement is enough. No prison sentence is enough. Even seeing ISIS members imprisoned cannot bring back the mothers of those little children. It cannot bring a father back to his son. It cannot return a brother to his sister. It cannot restore the years stolen from a girl who was enslaved. It cannot bring back the elderly women who were murdered, the men who were executed or the families who were destroyed. Nothing can return the lives that were taken.
It has now been twelve years, but for the survivors, twelve years does not mean twelve years of forgetting. The memories remain. The missing remain missing. The dead remain dead. The survivors continue to carry the weight of what happened to them, and many families continue to live with questions that may never have answers. Time does not bring back the people who were taken. Time does not erase the sound of gunshots. Time does not restore a childhood that was stolen. Time does not rebuild a family after its members have been murdered or scattered across countries.
This is why Kocho must not become only a number in the history of the Ezidi Genocide. Kocho was not a number. Kocho was a village full of people. It was fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, farmers and children. It was homes, families, traditions, prayers, memories and lives. Before it became a symbol of genocide, Kocho was simply home.
And that is what makes its story so painful. The people of Kocho did not ask for war. They did not ask to become victims. They wanted only to live in their homes, work their land, raise their children and practise their faith. Yet they were abandoned at the moment they needed protection the most. For thirteen days, they waited for help that did not come. They were surrounded by terrorists, given an impossible choice and then punished for refusing to surrender their identity.
Today, we remember the men who were taken away and killed. We remember the women and girls who were kidnapped and enslaved. We remember the elderly who were murdered. We remember the children who lost their parents. We remember the survivors who continue to carry these memories. And we remember every family whose life was changed forever because of what happened in Kocho.
Nothing can bring the dead back. Nothing can return what was stolen. Nothing can undo what happened on those terrible days. But remembering matters. Telling the truth matters. Speaking about Kocho matters, because silence allows victims to disappear into history, and the people of Kocho deserve more than to become forgotten names or statistics.
They deserve to be remembered as human beings.
They deserve to be remembered as people who loved their families, worked their land, practised their faith and wanted nothing more than to live.
They deserve to be remembered for their courage.
And they deserve a world that refuses to look away.
For the people of Kocho, there may never be enough justice to compensate for what was lost, because justice cannot bring their loved ones back. But truth, remembrance, accountability and recognition are still the least that the victims and survivors deserve.
For those who were murdered, we remember. For those who remain missing, we remember. For the survivors, we stand with them. For the mothers who lost their sons, for the children who lost their fathers, for the sisters who lost their brothers, for the women and girls whose lives were stolen, and for every person who was taken from Kocho, we will not forget.
Kocho must not be forgotten. The Ezidi people must not be forgotten. And the world must never forget what happened on 15 August 2014.
