Amid the ruins of the city and the old market in Sinjar, participants in the Dialogue and Knowing the Other Camp toured the area. From midday until evening, members of the Knights of Dialogue team moved among destroyed homes and places of worship to witness the scale of violence and terrorism that Sinjar endured after its takeover by ISIS between 2014 and 2017, during which the group committed some of the most horrific acts of genocide.
Participants exchanged discussions and stories about the city’s religious diversity and the forms of coexistence that prevailed before 2014. They also visited city landmarks, including the remains of the Yazidi Sun Gate, Christian churches, and the Muslim mosque in the same area—sites united by the آثار of destruction and battles that ended eight years ago without any real beginning of reconstruction, while many residents remain displaced in camps across several cities.
It is worth noting that the “Through Dialogue We Remain and Rise” camp began in Baghdad with the participation of youth from Sinjar, later joined by youth from Baghdad in its first phase. It then reached Basra, where young men and women from the city joined the team, which went on to Dhi Qar, then the Nineveh Plain, and afterward entered the old city of Mosul, before now arriving in Sinjar and its surrounding areas. The camp will soon continue its tour to other Iraqi cities as part of a program aimed at promoting dialogue as a mechanism for building peace among followers of different religions and rejecting hate speech.
