As we headed out of the village, the image of the old man’s face with tears in his eyes kept coming back to me. I’ve seen few men older than him. The lines on his face seem to tell of hardships that I could never understand or comprehend. And now, he was moving again. How many times has he fled Iran’s shelling or Saddam’s troops, or Turkey’s warplanes?
The vacated village is just one of seven that have recently become uninhabitable in our region. How many more will follow?
Keeping our eyes peeled on the road ahead we came across a couple men that told us they were part of the larger family that recently lost the woman with 5 children. We followed them another few kilometers, then cut off sharply into a canyon with a stream running besides a half a dozen tents.
Parking the car I looked up to see the man that had lost his wife just 10 days prior. I got out and shook his hand as warmly as I could.
He ushered me over to a large tent where we learned first-hand what had happened that night.
Here’s more of that story:
Saying ‘Goodbye’ – at least for now.