10 Years of Darkness: ISIS & The Yazidis

It was standing room only as 10 Years Of Darkness: ISIS & The Yazidis played to a packed house of specially invited journalists and politicians at an advance screening of the latest documentary from Sky News. They were there to watch the results of a decade-long investigation by Special Correspondent, Alex Crawford, into the plight of the Yazidis, a religious minority of Kurdish-speaking people, brutally targeted by the ISIS regime in Sinjar, Northern Iraq. To carry out the genocide of the Yazidi people, the terror group’s preferred method has been the murder of men and boys, and the enslavement and forced marriage of women and girls. 

The Sky News team followed the trail of destruction, uncovering stories of those women and girls held captive, including that of Kovan who was just 14 when she was abducted by ISIS fighters over a decade ago. Alex Crawford: ‘Their stories were pretty repulsive and shocking because, whoever you are, the idea that you would be enslaved by men or bought and sold between men is the peak nightmare for women. That hit me in the face right from the beginning.’

Sky Post Production has worked closely with Sky News to bring this important story to the widest possible audience and 10 Years Of Darkness: ISIS & The Yazidis represents the chance to give a fuller account of the horrors faced by the Yazidi population. Journalists, producers and camera operators have risked life and liberty to uncover painful and disturbing truths, and Post Production are proud to have played a part in the vital dissemination of such a shocking narrative, which may finally achieve the prominence it deserves.

10 Years Of Darkness: ISIS & The Yazidis is a hard watch looking, as it does, down the barrel at the very worst that humanity has to offer. But it's also a story that deserves more than just a five-minute update on the nightly news. As Alex Crawford puts it: ‘This isn’t an exposé because it is not just a slight indiscretion, it is systemic abuse and rape on a massive scale.’