Dedicated to all the western volunteers who have fought and died with the Kurdish YPG to defend the Yezedis and to resist Daesh and their allies, the NATO-supported Islamist Turks.  Aidan James, 27, was the second Briton to face terrorist charges after travelling to join the Syrian Kurdish YPG.

The Ezedi
Survived 74 attempts at genocide
By their neighbours, the Sunni tribes
But, thank God,  some are still alive.

Smell the desert wind,
See these women, shyly beautiful, armed
YPG soldiers alive beneath the stars:
Desire does not evaporate in this Mesopotamian heat
Our eyes sparkle for all that we no longer have.
This makes us so-sad.

Not that I hope for anything from you in the west,
My sweet life, except more misery.
Compassion never leaves us
The hellish cruelties of the Caliphate intervened
So easy to destroy, so hard to create.

Weeping dies in this old man's eyes
He avoids the extravagances of love,
Burning sighs can swallow sadness,
The need to find the missing Yezedi girls predominates:
His wife, his daughters, his granddaughters gone, taken
Enslaved: 'sex slaves' Daesh bought & sold
In Mosul including his youngest daughter FERAŞÎN.

I do not hope for miraculous interventions 
For I  know how utterly selfish and cowardly
You in the rich west are
The Ezedi must leap into an imagined future
where we all take a step towards futurity.
Solving nothing except the inhuman cruelty of Daesh
That traps the Ezedi in this heartless present.