Saher is a young Yazidi Iraqi artist working by the name Saher Art. Since the ISIS attack on the Yazidi population in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq in August 2014, Saher and his family have been displaced and living in an IDP camp. He recalls a difficult start to life, as his family were considered enemies of the Ba’athist regime before 2003 and Saher’s family members, although well educated, could not be hired in government positions. “When the Ba’ath party fell, after that my family members were able to get jobs”, Saher explains. Before the 2014 attack he lived with his parents and six siblings in the village of Khana Sor, north of Mount Sinjar, and he says that the people felt safe and happy. Saher’s own dream was to become a nurse because he saw that there was a lack of medical staff and he wanted to help people in the medical field. In the days leading up to the ISIS offensive on Sinjar in August 2014, everyone was afraid of an imminent attack and the possibility of losing loved ones. “During 3 August, some friends in the villages to the south of the mountain called to warn us that ISIS had begun attacking the villages,” Saher says. He and his family wanted to find a safe refuge, and there was nowhere to go except the mountain, where they would stay for eight days before fleeing to Duhok. On the mountain, children and elderly people were dying of dehydration and hunger, and news also reached those who had fled that people were being killed in the villages below. Saher says that life in the camp today is difficult particularly in terms of mental health: “When you are living in the camp you feel like you are always having psychological problems. There are 8-10 people in one tent, and you have no place to comfortably paint or to relax. It has been six years and we are still living in the camps, so we are tired of being alive.”

Art has at least been one effective outlet for Saher, who has been painting since 2015. He says he wanted to express the things he has seen and the suffering of his people through his paintings, and among the most impactful of these is his work entitled The Temple of Betrayal. It depicts the day ISIS invaded Sinjar and began its campaign of genocide against the Yazidi people. ISIS logos and flags can be seen on the walls and rooves of traditional buildings in an imaginary village that represents all Yazidi settlements in the Sinjar region. Saher explains that the dark colouring of Mount Sinjar in the background represents the grief of his community, against a blood-red sky symbolising the horror of that day. Meanwhile, the white details in the distant mountains represent innocent Yazidi souls for whom there was no safe zone except on Mount Sinjar. Saher wants the painting to commemorate what he calls the betrayal by neighbouring communities who left his people at the mercy of ISIS.

Saher has previously been victim to artistic censorship, having had numerous paintings confiscated, and he points out that there is no freedom for expression for artists in Iraq. This compounds the problem of insufficient financial and practical support. He also calls for international protection for the Yazidi community, with an emphasis on enabling displaced Yazidis safely to return to their home region. A priority for Saher is mental health: “There are important causes of these mental issues. If there were job opportunities people would be occupied with their work; people live in utter poverty with no jobs, so life becomes increasingly difficult for them.”

“If there were job opportunities people would be occupied with their work; people live in utter poverty with no jobs, so life becomes difficult for them.” – Saher Shaker