Editorial: Documentary (PROFESSIONAL) - HONORABLE MENTION
Where the Yazidis are

Photo © Giacomo Sini
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Yazidis are a religious group of about half a million people who is native of the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh. They share the same language and much of the culture of the Kurds of Turkey and Syria. Because of their attachment to a cult of pre-Islamic and gnostic origin they’ve been received years of strong repression. In last three years Yazidis, have been the main targets of ethnic cleansing by IS militiamen, along with Christians and Shiites. Everyone remember their fugue towards the mountains of Sinjar, when IS began a strong offensive in northern Iraq on early August 2014. At that time, IS forces committed a massacre, killing over 5000 Yazidis men and kidnapping other thousands of women, sold into slavery in Mosul or Raqqa. The population who survived to the attacks fled in the mountains around Sinjar where it was trapped without food, water or medical care, facing starvation, dehydration and the risk of more incursions by IS for several weeks. Fortunately PKK and YPG Kurdish forces open a corridor towards the mountains to Northern Syria, led by Kurdish forces, in order to make them flee safely. Therefore today thousands of Yazidis are still living in the heart of the mountain living in a context of continuous tensions erupted in the area within anti-Is forces . Shingal Resistance Units (YBŞ) and other militias are laboriously trying to guarantee them the safety to rebuilt a new project of life. . Despite the situation Yazidis have also never stopped celebrating their own New Year in Lalish, Iraq where hundred thousands of people come from every part of the world and also from Shingal in order to honor this sacred date.
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Yazidis are a religious group of about half a million people who is native of the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh. They share the same language and much of the culture of the Kurds of Turkey and Syria. Because of their attachment to a cult of pre-Islamic and gnostic origin they’ve been received years of strong repression. In last three years Yazidis, have been the main targets of ethnic cleansing by IS militiamen, along with Christians and Shiites. Everyone remember their fugue towards the mountains of Sinjar, when IS began a strong offensive in northern Iraq on early August 2014. At that time, IS forces committed a massacre, killing over 5000 Yazidis men and kidnapping other thousands of women, sold into slavery in Mosul or Raqqa. The population who survived to the attacks fled in the mountains around Sinjar where it was trapped without food, water or medical care, facing starvation, dehydration and the risk of more incursions by IS for several weeks. Fortunately PKK and YPG Kurdish forces open a corridor towards the mountains to Northern Syria, led by Kurdish forces, in order to make them flee safely. Therefore today thousands of Yazidis are still living in the heart of the mountain living in a context of continuous tensions erupted in the area within anti-Is forces . Shingal Resistance Units (YBŞ) and other militias are laboriously trying to guarantee them the safety to rebuilt a new project of life. . Despite the situation Yazidis have also never stopped celebrating their own New Year in Lalish, Iraq where hundred thousands of people come from every part of the world and also from Shingal in order to honor this sacred date.
About author:
Giacomo Sini born in Pisa, (Italy) in 1989. In 2014 he obtained a degree in social sciences at Pisa University. Traveler, has passed through fifty countries photographing the social and political realities. Passionate about the Middle East and Central Asia, has photographed many times the reality of conflict in Lebanon and Kurdistan, focusing primarily on the struggles of the Kurdish population in the territories where it has established. He has lived in Istanbul for a month in 2014, carrying out a photographic project for the Netherlands Institute In Turkey about the gentrification of certain neighborhoods of the city. Giacomo participated at the master in “Contemporary photojournalism 2014-2015” at "Officine Fotografiche Roma" in Rome, where he was chosen to expose his reportage of Kobane and Kurdish refugees at the national exhibition of "Fotoleggendo 2015”. The project won On October 2015 the first prize for the category “Editorial-Conflict” at “Mifa – Moscow International Photo Award 2015” in Moscow, where it has been exhibited and arrived as a finalist in “One Eye land awards - 2015” for the category “Editorial- War/Conflict”. On February 2015 he also received an honorable mention at “IPA”. Since 2012 Giacomo collaborates with the independent newspaper of Livorno "Senza Soste" as a correspondent. On winter 2015 collaborated with Wostok press. On April 2015 collaborated with “Oneshot image collective” as a photographer and with “Echo Photojournalism”. His work have been published in L’Express, Vice, Nena News, NC Reporter, A Rivista, El Pais, Il Manifesto, Neon Magazine,Vita Mag. Today is living in Livorno, (Italy) but he sometimes moves to Turkey and Rome, (Italy)BACK TO GALLERY