Blake Hall
The Yazidis are a Kurdish religious community who trace their beliefs back to the ancient theology of Zoroastrianism in Mesopotamia.
Got it? Good.
Meet Yazidi singer Xate Shingali. Here she is … jamming.
Here she is … fighting:
That’s because she and a bunch of other Yazidi women formed a battalion to combat ISIS and retaliate against the evil they’ve purported upon the Yazidi people — especially women. Evil like rape and murder, thousands upon thousands times over. To put it bluntly, these brave women have had enough, and they’re putting their lives on the line to try and end the vile bloodshed once and for all.
They call themselves the “Sun Girls”, and they’re training to storm the battlefields of Iraq with the hope that their might will make a difference. They have courage in abundance. But what they don’t have are any misconceptions or delusions of grandeur. They know the stakes. And they know they’re potentially brutal.
This from the Daily Mail:
If [Shingali’s] troops are ever caught by the enemy, they will either be killed or, more likely, be held by the extremists as their personal sex slaves.
Even the youngest, just 17, brushes off that terrifying prospect, adding: “Even if they kill me, I will say I am a Yazidi.”
ISIS kidnapped thousands of Yazidi women and very young girls when it stormed their villages in Sinjar province, northern Iraq, in August 2014.
Those who escaped from their clutches have told of how they endured unimaginable cruelty and sexual abuse at the hands of the ISIS fighters they were forced to marry.
Shingali, 30, received special permission from the Kurdish president to assemble the unit of female fighters. Since she started at the beginning of July, she’s amassed over 120 soldiers between the ages of 17 and 30.
She admits the group needs more training, but are currently working hard to hone their weapon of choice: the AK-47.
