A Cave in the Clouds: A Young Woman’s Escape from ISIS

Occasional media coverage of the genocidal assaults by ISIS/Daesh against the Ezidi (also known as Yazidi or Yizidi) people of northern Iraq, the enslavement of women and children, and the urgent need for refuge for those who survived the assaults, tends to get lost amidst the global sea of refugee and migrant stories that threaten to overwhelm North American and European consumers of news. A Cave in the Clouds is one of only a handful of book length accounts of the Ezidi people and their recent, ongoing struggles for survival. It is also one of the few works that strives to demystify the religious faith of these people. Unfortunately, McClelland is only partially successful in her effort to seamlessly incorporate information about the Ezidi faith into the narrative of the year-long ordeal of Badeeah Hassan Ahmed. Cultural details and religious beliefs often weigh down the text and detract from the main narrative.

Badeeah was an unmarried 18-year-old when her world collapsed in August 2014. Her family and many others from their village were hoping to escape to Kurdistan, away from the Daesh forces that had taken control of their region in Iraq. Many of the men, refusing to convert to Islam, were slaughtered by the extremists. Badeeah and other women and children were eventually drugged, transported to Syria and sold as slaves to Daesh’s buyers. Badeeah was accompanied by her three-year old nephew Eivan, and she convinced him to play a game that she was his mother. Through the ordeals that followed, she found resiliency by drawing upon the mental strength of imagination and her spiritual faith.

One of the themes that runs through the memoir is that of the bonds between mother and daughter. Adlan, her mother, emerges as Badeeah’s main teacher of their ancient faith’s beliefs and customs. Even as a captive, Badeeah began to sense her mother’s presence—and encouragement:

Always move to the light. Don’t let the darkness in. Remember the purpose of life. Hold onto love, so that darkness will eventually be banished.

Badeeah and a fellow captive were sold to an American member of Daesh known as the Sheikh of Aleppo. Al-Amriki made Badeeah his “wife” and slave, and the other woman became a domestic slave. At first, Eivan lived with them, and his need for a loving caregiver provided incentive for Badeeah to endure the situation. Violence and sexual abuse are sensitively noted, omitting unnecessary details that the reader can fill in. Following a failed attempt at escape, al-Amriki punished Badeeah by telling her that he sold Eivan. Depression and ideas of suicide followed. Her friend and the eventual return of Eivan helped to strengthen Badeeah’s resolve to survive.

With help from a merchant in Aleppo and a human smuggler, Badeeah and her two companions returned to Iraq and reunited with surviving family members living in refugee camps in the Kurdish held territory. Eivan was reunited with his mother Samira, but Badeeah struggled with what is likely PTSD. She received counseling from a female doctor, and gradually she regained mental health and a new purpose in life. She began sharing her story with news reporters from America and other parts of the world.

McClelland concludes with some sobering facts:

Badeaah’s mother, father, all of her older brothers … are still missing. So is Nafaa [a young man that Badeaah had a crush on.] Mass graves have been discovered in Iraq, including one in Kocho [her home village] that holds the remains of about seventy bodies. Another mass grave has been found in Solakh. The people buried in these graves have yet to be identified.

Today, Badeeah lives in Germany with Eivan and his mother, Samira. She is studying languages and nursing. Her dream is to become a nurse or a doctor to help her people.

The final version of this book will include a map that should help the reader visualize the region of Kurdish Iraq that was home to at least half the Ezidis prior to the fall of Saddam Hussein and the country’s collapse into anarchy. Hopefully it will locate Lalish, the village that is home to the Ezidi’s holiest temples. In her acknowledgments, McClelland recognizes fact checkers and others who provided insight into the political and cultural context of the region in 2014, and McClelland especially acknowledges the contributions of Imad and Fawaz Farhan who shared insights into Ezidi spirituality. No bibliographical references are provided. Readers can easily locate photographs of Lalish and its temples on the internet.

A bookseller recently told me that refugee stories are not selling well right now. Perhaps the 24 hour news cycle, and sad plight brought to light of some of the sixty-eight and one-half million refugees (according to the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency) in the world today has made Westerners tired of these tales. Nevertheless, it is important to hear first-hand accounts of cultural genocide, ethnic and religious “cleansing”, and the impact of modern warfare on people living today and struggling to make the world aware of their unique stories.

A Cave in the Clouds contains many themes that are common to other refugee stories, but it stands out for its coverage of the assault upon a small cultural group, the Ezidis, some of whom have relocated to Canada, far from their sacred sites and familiar landscape. Thus, Badeeah’s story can help Canadians understand the circumstances that led some of our neighbours to seek refuge in distant lands.