honorable mention
Giacomo Sini italy
title
An Ezidis' story
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entry description
Ezidis are a religious group of about half a million people who is native of the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh. They share the same language and much of the culture of the Kurds of Turkey and Syria. Because of their attachment to a cult of pre-Islamic and gnostic origin they’ve been received years of strong repression. In last three years Ezidis, have been the main targets of ethnic cleansing by IS militiamen, along with Christians and Shiites. Everyone remember their fugue towards the mountains of Sinjar, when IS began a strong offensive in northern Iraq on early August 2014. At that time, IS forces committed a massacre, killing over 5000 Ezides men and kidnapping other thousands of women, sold into slavery in Mosul or Raqqa. The population who survived to the attacks fled in the mountains around Sinjar where it was trapped without food, water or medical care, facing starvation, dehydration and the risk of more incursions by IS for several weeks. Fortunately PKK and YPG Kurdish forces open a corridor towards the mountains to Northern Syria, led by Kurdish forces, in order to make them flee safely. Thousands of Ezidis get safe in Rojava and then travel to Europe on 2015. Some of them were stopped on the border between Greece and Macedonia between 2015-2016 on their fugue towards north. After several months of stoppage, a lot of them decided to return in Iraq, despite the risk and the destrution around the area. Therefore today more than 35.000 people are still living in the heart of the mountain within self-made tents, living close to the same frontline against ISIS since more than 3 years. Ezidis Resistance Units (YBŞ) and other Kurdish militias are laboriously trying to guarantee them the saefty to rebuilt a new project of life.about the photographer
Giacomo Sini born in Pisa, (Italy) in 1989. In 2014 he obtained a degree in social sciences at Pisa University. Traveler, has passed through fifty countries photographing the social and political realities. Passionate about the Middle East and Central Asia, has photographed many times the reality of conflict in these lands, focusing primarily on the struggles of the Kurdish population in the territories where it has established. He has lived in Istanbul for a month in 2014, carrying out a photographic project for the Netherlands Institute In Turkey about the gentrification of certain neighborhoods of the city. Giacomo participated at the master in “Contemporary photojournalism 2014-2015” at "Officine Fotografiche Roma" in Rome, where he was chosen to expose his reportage of Kobane and Kurdish refugees at the national exhibition of "Fotoleggendo 2015”. His works has been poublished by EL Pais, Die Zeit, Repubblica, The Week, News, Internazionale, Vice Magazine, NZZ, Left. Today is living in Livorno, (Italy) but he sometimes moves to Turkey and Rome, (Italy).back to gallery
