War of a Forgotten Nation

War of a Forgotten Nation

First image: Al-Malikiyah, Syria, March 2015. A 17-years-old Syrian (centre) and a Turkish fighter (right), both accused of being members of the Islamic State Organisation, were captured on the Tal Hamis Syrian front by YPG militias- the Syrian equivalent of the Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK. They are confined in a prison formerly used by the Syrian Regime's Security Services.

Following the offensive of the jihadist Islamic State organisation and the siege of Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, on the 10th of June 2014, as well as self-proclaimed Caliph, Abu Baker Al Baghdadi's declaration of the Caliphate, which spreads across Syria and Iraq and is ruled by a rigorous and extremist vision of the Islamic law, Kurdish fighters from Iraq, Syria and Turkey have risen against them.

In seized territory all over Iraq and Syria, as is the case with Sinjar in the Iraqi Ninivah province, ISIS have captured, enslaved and committed mass murders against minorities like Yazidis, Kurds, or Shia Muslims.

Since then, Kurdish fighters from the Turkish outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and Peshmergas (i.e. the ones who face death) in Iraq, have become the main force fighting the jihadists in northern Syria and northern Iraq, winning successive, important battles and acquiring territories, subsequently making the self-declared Jihadist Caliphate weaker by the day.

Nestled between Empires and surrounded by conquerors, Kurdish people inhabiting the Kurdistan regions in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, as well as Iran, have been envisioning the creation of an Independent State for a hundred years, and for the first time, today, they feel closer to realising their dream.

The pictures of this on-going documentary project are being taken in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, as of August 2014.

Emilien Urbano.