This is Part Two of a serialized long-form essay. Read Part One. As dawn broke in Kocho on August 3, a group of residents climbed swiftly and silently into their cars and started their engines. The day's temperatures were yet to creep into the high 40's. There were no planes in the sky, no Kurdish Peshmerga troops in sight to protect them. News of ISIS' advance in the neighbouring area had reached Kocho, and they feared the window of time before the group's fighters arrived was closing––they had to get away. Their vehicles were exposed against the arid landscape as they began down the main road toward Sinjar, 35 kilometres away. Soon ISIS-branded SUVs with their big black flags waving roared up behind them, forcing the convoy off the road. The fighters pulled the fifty members of Kocho's tight-knit community out of their vehicles, lined them up along the side of the road, and shot every last one of them.
Kocho's Living Ghosts - Part Two
Kocho's Living Ghosts - Part Two
Kocho's Living Ghosts - Part Two
This is Part Two of a serialized long-form essay. Read Part One. As dawn broke in Kocho on August 3, a group of residents climbed swiftly and silently into their cars and started their engines. The day's temperatures were yet to creep into the high 40's. There were no planes in the sky, no Kurdish Peshmerga troops in sight to protect them. News of ISIS' advance in the neighbouring area had reached Kocho, and they feared the window of time before the group's fighters arrived was closing––they had to get away. Their vehicles were exposed against the arid landscape as they began down the main road toward Sinjar, 35 kilometres away. Soon ISIS-branded SUVs with their big black flags waving roared up behind them, forcing the convoy off the road. The fighters pulled the fifty members of Kocho's tight-knit community out of their vehicles, lined them up along the side of the road, and shot every last one of them.