Too cold to get out of bed
Words and images by Suzy Sainovski, Communications Director – Syria Crisis Response
On August 3, 2014, Mayan, her husband and their children fled the escalating violence in Iraq, along with thousands of others, to the Sinjar Mountains, where they were stranded for 15 days with little more than the clothes on their backs.
“Many died in the mountains and there was no food or water,” she tells me.
The family had made their way towards the Syrian border where passing cars offered to take them to the safety of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
“When we first arrived at this unfinished building, we just slept on the ground. The community around here gave us food.”
A few months after they arrived, a harsh winter set in.
“That first winter here was so cold,” Mayan recalls.
Hareman, six, her mum Mayan and brother Manaa, eight. Hareman stayed very close to her mum inside their tent. The family has had to call the unfinished building ‘home’ since they fled their hometown over a year ago.
The first sight of this building is quite a shocking one. It’s hard to believe that people actually live in these conditions. and the onset of winter makes an already difficult situation even more challenging for displaced families. Last winter was a particularly harsh one across the Middle East.
Manaa and Hareman snuggle under a warm blanket that was given to the family by World Vision, along with other winter items such as a heater, plastic sheeting, ropes, carpets and mattresses.
“When it’s cold the kids get under the blankets and sometimes they ask me to get under the blankets with them to warm them up. On some cold winter mornings Hareman will say ‘I’m hungry but it’s too cold to get out of bed. I will wait to see the sun.’ Sometimes I take breakfast to them in bed,” Mayan tells me.
Hareman and Manaa have fun running around and playing football with their friends in the unfinished building despite the dangerous one storey drop on three sides of the building.
Mayan, her husband and their seven children live on the first floor of this unfinished building along with their extended family. There are also displaced families living on the level below.
Families have created makeshift clotheslines between the pillars of the unfinished building.
“When my hands are very cold I put them in my pockets,” shared Hareman. Current nighttime temperatures in this part of Iraq hover just above freezing and winter has only just begun. Last winter the local community donated clothing to displaced families.
As the dangers of winter descend on the Middle East, World Vision has recently been distributing winter kits to 23 families, including Mayan’s, in this and nearby unfinished buildings, and 967 families living in Shekan camp for internally displaced people. The kits contain warm blankets, plastic sheets, rope, a heater, carpet and mattresses. To help, please visit our Refugee Crisis Appeal here.