New documentary sheds painful light on plight of former Yazidi ISIS child soldiers in Iraq

[Valin]

Rudaw

Alannah Travers

Feb. 11 2022

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - When Barzan awoke to the sound of screams in the early hours of the morning of August 3, 2014, the 13-year-old ran to feed his doves for a final time before fleeing his home, never to return. As Islamic State (ISIS) militants attacked Shingal, he was captured along with around 6,000 members of his Yazidi community, whereupon he was taken into captivity and forced to fight for the so-called caliphate for the remainder of his blighted childhood.

Vian, also a young boy at his time of capture, became a close friend when they met in captivity. Together, the two supported each other through horrific training, frontline military conflict as ISIS child soldiers and, four years later, their escape in 2018 with the help of smugglers.

“We were forced to do everything they said,” Vian recounts in a short documentary film released on Friday by Amnesty International and Fat Rat Films, depicting the unbreakable brotherhood that developed between Vian and Barzan, who survived their horrific captivity under ISIS and now, like other Yazidi survivors, deserve reparations and support to help rebuild their lives. 

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Feb. 10 2022

The 12-minute film, Captives on the frontlines: Yezidi former child soldiers who survived ISIS, explores the friendship between Vian and Barzan, two young men who were abducted as boys by IS in 2014, indoctrinated into the armed group, and forced to fight. Both escaped and are now living in northern Iraq, where the documentary was filmed last year.