Rojîn Hebabî

Shengal- ISIS committed a genocide against the Yazidi community on August 3,2014, killing thousands of women and children. Mother Erzan was one of these women. Although she saw in her dream that ISIS would commit a genocide against the Yazidi community, she did not leave her home. She was an old woman living alone. Şêrîn Şengalî, one of the survivor of the Yazidi genocide, told us the story of Mother Erzan and how she was killed and burned by ISIS.

‘She lived with the help of people’

Speaking about the personality of Mother Erzan, Şerîn Şengalî said, “Mother Erzan was living alone in a house located between the Dugur and Dohla villages. She lived with the help of people. Even though she knew everyone in society, she isolated her from everyone. Mother Erzan was called ‘Pîre (English: Grandmother)’. People often visited her to ask questions because she could see the future. Mother Erzan was a poor mother. Farmers often visited her to ask her if it would rain.”

Şerîn Şengalî also witnessed that Mother Erzan saw the future. “Mother Erzan had two tins of wheat. She gave those tins to a farmer, saying, ‘Plant these wheats this year’. The farmer told her to keep the wheats for herself; however, she refused. It rained a lot that year and the wheat harvest was very good.”

‘They burned her’

At the end of her speech, Şêrîn Şengalî told us why Mother Erzan had not escaped from the Yazidi genocide in 2014 as follows: “Mother Erzan saw in her dream that ISIS would commit a genocide against the Yazidi community. She could have saved her on the day when the genocide started. Her house was located on the road between Dugur and Dohla villages and most Yazidis escaped from ISIS by using that road. They told her to go with them but she told them that she would not leave her home because she had seen in her dream that her own salvation was the annihilation of the Yazidi community. She did not leave her home and she was killed and burned in front of her house by ISIS.”