Don't Forget Them (2020) - full transcript

I've been a doctor for many years and
the most rewarding thing is to be able to

help the community.
But recently,

I have become inspired by a nonprofit
organization helping displaced people in

Kurdistan. My friend is sending me
updates about these cities in Kurdistan.

It is so intense to see how
destroyed these cities are.

I couldn't believe what
my eyes were seeing.

Jeez,

this is crazy...

So you are at ground zero.

And this is four and a half years later.

I've been to
Kurdistan three times.



Been over there on relief trips both with
refugees and to get the orphan program

started and to see how things
are working over there.

The refugee crisis is
a combination of ISIS,

violence caused by ISIS in Iraq but
also the Syrian War so because of the

conflict you get refugees and
IDPs from all over the region.

And because the Kurdish region is actually
very stable relative to the surrounding

countries, that's where
everybody tends to go to,

and that's where the majority
of all the UN camps are.

Wow. It's completely destroyed.

I've known the Kramer's,

especially Jerry Kramer
for about 35 years now.

And been involved on/off
with Love for the Least.

And then about three or four years ago
became much more heavily involved when

they started working
in Northern Iraq.



Let everybody know we are the
soldier of the Islamic state,

we are coming with
permission from God.

Wow. But love is coming
here. It is true. Yeah.

But love is coming here.

They just deface everything.

They tunnel between the houses.

So that's an ISIS tunnel system.

We asked for God to fill this community
with your presence and your hope that

this place once again is Holy unto you
and that your name is worshiped here and

praised above all.

We bless your heart and your plans
and your vision for your people here.

We ask you to give them courage,
hope, faith, patience, steadfastness,

gentleness and joy, great joy of the
Lord within this community Father God.

We thank you for the people around the
world who have not forgotten your people

here. We ask you to bless
those who bless others.

I wanted to go and help so I found out
when the next medical team was going,

and I signed up to go. I'm going to
bring a few things for the kids there.

I have here some soccer balls.

Very nice soccer balls, so
I'm going to put them in here,

and I'm planning to
give them some cards.

These are some players, so
I'm going to give it to them.

Now, I've got everything I
need, and I'm ready to go.

We're based in Duhok in Northern
Iraq right now. Kurdistan.

Which again is important because
it's really the epicenter for the refugees,

displaced people from ISIS.

So we have about 2 million displaced
people from ISIS. Syrians, Yazidi,

Christians from the Nineveh
Plains. All right, you know,

within 45 minutes of our house.

It was a long flight coming
from the US to Europe.

Myself and another volunteer
flew together to Kurdistan.

I was super happy to
meet Jerry and Stacy.

Along the way,
we've just picked up

this great team of church partners
and friends and organizations and

civic groups that just come with us
and walk with us and love the least with us

in East Africa and
here in Northern Iraq.

I went to help the refugees
and displaced people

living in the camps
in Kurdistan.

Hundreds of thousands of people were
forced to come to Kurdistan from Syria

because of the civil war there.

Kurdistan welcomed them and the United
Nations supplied the tents for the flood

of refugees coming out of Syria.

But people were still living in the
camps with very little assistance,

and I knew that I could
help with medical care.

Our organization is
called Love for the Least,

and we've been
around since 2003.

We work in Tanzania,

we work in Kenya.

And then in 2014 we began
working in Northern Iraq.

The main reason for me
to go to Kurdistan was to

see with my own eyes the
situation there.

We have sent, quite a few,

I think about 14 or 15 medical teams
that visited Kurdistan starting in 2014

when ISIS really kind of
made their push into Mosul,

and it created a huge refugee flood out
of Northern Iraq into the Kurdish region

where they were put into UN camps
there where it's a much safer area.

But when ISIS first
went into Mosul,

it created a massive
outflow of refugees,

and that's when we
first started working there.

We help refugees,

the Yazidi in one camp and then we
help the Syrian refugees in another camp.

And then we've worked
with Christian refugees,

IDPs in about 40 or so
villages over this time.

So there are about
2 million refugees,

IDPs from ISIS within about 45 minutes
drive of our house here in Northern Iraq.

So they are all around us.

There are a million Yazidi left
on the planet, Yazidi people,

and a half a million of them
are in UN camps right now.

This year about a quarter million
Syrians right around us also.

So this is a tremendous
place for displaced people.

I am here in Iraq. This
is my fifth mission trip.

I came initially being asked by one of
my patients who's a pastor to come over

and do a mission trip right after
ISIS had come into the country.

So my first trip here was in
2015, and now this is my fifth trip.

It's a beautiful day today and we
are heading to the Syrian camps now.

It's about half an hour from here.
I'm expecting to have a lot of patients,

a lot of kids mostly, and
let's see what happens.

The camp where we're going now is
located in the Northern region of Kurdistan

near Duhok. When you arrive there,
there isn't that much you can find.

It's a very difficult time
for them after crossing the

border and settling into
a strange land.

The Syrian conflict has become
an enormous humanitarian crisis.

After so many years of fighting,

thousands of refugees
have come to this area.

Their temporary tents have become
permanent concrete cities. But still,

there's only one healthcare facility for
the ten-thousand people who live here

in Domiz Camp II. They
leave behind their lives,

their homes and everything
they own just to find a better future.

But in this journey they might find all
kinds of challenges and health issues.

Today we are at the Domiz Camp
and we're going to see Syrian refugees.

I'm happy to be here.

To manage these camps is
a massive undertaking.

There are international organizations
that work in these camps to supply basic

needs to the people who are
arriving and living here.

We're just going to see patients
and hopefully help them.

There's still refugees
coming in so we still see

some patients with acute trauma,

but most of the time we're seeing
chronic disease and acute illnesses like

bronchitis and sore throats
and things like that.

The majority of the patients want to
be seen for their diabetes and their

hypertension and their back
pain and their knee pain,

so a lot of chronic illness.

We tried to help
the best we could.

I'm a pre-med engineering student,
and I'm also being an interpreter.

We are here today at Domiz Camp to help
out kids and families that are in need.

We're doing everything we can from
the big things to the small things and

whatever we can provide.

The displaced people living here
have a traumatic history of persecution.

It is especially difficult
for the children.

They are suffering from
conditions like PTSD, depression,

malnutrition and anxiety.

And the chronic conditions that would
be easy to treat can't be because they

lack the very basic
needs like clean water,

electricity and the
proper sanitary system.

They need more help here.

The amount of need that I have
seen here is very profound.

There are thousands of people living
here. We have a lot to do still here.

These camps were supposed to be
short term emergency solutions,

but they have turned
into longterm cities.

We're lacking sustainable relief to
actually solve this problem.

The interpreters and volunteers
that work here are just amazing.

They really want to help the
displaced people living here,

and anything they can do
to help, they will do it.

Each camp has only
one ambulance.

Sometimes in Iraq we see
seizures that are more hysteria,

and I'd never seen it before
until I came the first time.

And she gets these under stress,
and then she seizes us up, she faints,

seizes up, and then eventually she'll
wake up. She's not been to a neurologist.

We talked to her family,

and she's not been so she really
does need to work up for seizures.

We met many people today, and some
of their stories were just heartbreaking.

Once people arrived, they're moved
from a tent to a small one-room,

concrete house with a
toilet and a kitchen area.

The family then will receive
food, water, some supplies,

and a blanket.

It is very difficult to
afford private health care.

In some cases they need specialized
doctors who only practice in other

countries. The doctors
here do a great job,

but they're overwhelmed
and can't provide certain

treatment that some
people may need.

Children and adults with special
needs are especially vulnerable.

There were a couple of cases
that needed specialized attention.

It is very difficult
to deal with.

Besides the easily and treatable
illnesses of colds and cough,

these kids have survived and
escaped war. It is completely unfair,

unjust and wrong.

The most recent project that they're
launching in the camps is "Caring for"

"Widows and Orphans of ISIS." In
one of the Yazidi camps there,

they got over 400 plus widows and orphans
that they're documenting and providing

both education and mental
health counseling for.

So all of these widows and orphans
have some serious post traumatic stress,

and they have no counseling
at all up to this point.

And Love of at Least is
providing that to all of them.

The first time we
screened, we just,

I think they just made an announcement
in the camp that they were going to be

recording who the orphans were,

and just documenting them because they
were kind of running around all over the

place and people knew there
were lots of orphans in camp,

but there was no centralized list and
there was no way to identify who they

were. And there was
no medical screenings.

So we sent a team in a little trailer
and hundreds and hundreds of people

showed up and we were a little overwhelmed
by how many people actually came.

And they went through
medical screening,

and there was three times more
orphans there than we were expecting.

We got a call from one of the camp
directors, and he called Jerry and he said,

we have an orphan crisis
and can you help us?

So for two weeks
during the summer,

we called two nurses and another volunteer
and we moved into a caravan in like

110 degree weather and no

power. Right. And we began to
document the orphans. We took pictures,

we took names, we took their medical
history. And at the end of the day,

after two weeks and some change,

we got a count of 326
orphans in just one camp.

And mind you, there are 28
camps? 28 camps. So just,

all from ISIS. Yeah.

And then we also
documented 300 widows and

they're all young.
They're young widows,

and they all have
children. And so that's

why we're called Love for the
Least. We bring aid to orphans,

widows and now refugees.

After spending a few
days in a Syrian camp,

it was time to pack up some more
supplies and go to the Yazidi camp.

The Yazidis came to live in the camps
after 2014 because they were attacked,

and many of them were killed by
ISIS because of their beliefs.

They're not Muslim or Christians.
They have their own ancient religion.

They have continuously been discriminated
against because of their religion.

This was the 74th
genocide against them.

The big difference is when
we go to the Yazidi camps

is the Yazidi camps
are still in tents.

But one of my favorite thoughts
is the kids don't care.

The kids are playing in
the streets, they're happy,

they have no material things, and yet
they're really, really fun to be around.

They're all eager
to speak English,

and they're getting better at it
because they're teaching it now.

And anything that we can provide
them, a piece of candy, they love us.

Once we got to the camps, it was
time to set up and start seeing patients.

So we are in camp Shariya.

It is one of the 28
refugee camps or IDP camps,

internally displaced people.
It is a camp for Yazidi people.

It's a distinct people group,
about 7 - 8,000 years old.

And they have, they're their own
people group. They have their own culture,

language, religion. Very
neat, wonderful people.

She's asking if she needs
the medicine for...

No, no medicine for this, no.

So the people are here because
they escaped from ISIS off Sinjar.

They went into Syria,
and then from Syria,

they came back in here.
Around August 2014,

they were on the streets.
And when we were here,

there were literally thousands and
thousands of people on the streets,

and they were living under maybe
those blue thin tarps tied to trees.

They were also in any space
in an abandoned building,

and they were littered on the roads.
Thousands. And then the UN came in,

and the next time we came in,
which was three months later,

most of the people
were in camps.

So these people are in camps
because they cannot go home.

Their homes are now rubble. They've
been destroyed by the war with ISIS,

bombed out rubble, can't go
back. And I'm not sure who...

Hello baby. I'm not sure who
has control of Sinjar right now,

but last week it was some
of the Iranian militia.

It is very important, the blood
pressure is very high, let her know.

I actually got to spend an afternoon with
my Yazidi doctor who's been with me on

every trip. He's now working
in a government hospital,

and he came over for the
afternoon to spend it with us.

So we have 400 orphans or so here in
the camps with the Yazidi that we're caring

for, providing trauma care
for, teaching English,

doing as much education and
care with them as we can.

Also providing medicine,
doctors, medical care, food,

you know, with the
basics of life,

we're trying to get them beyond
from relief into recovery.

Trying to find at least the new normal
for them. They're very bright kids.

They're very, very capable. They're
hardworking and they're smart.

You know, they want to provide, they
want to work, they want to go to school.

So the barrier there is
really just the funds to put

them in the local
private universities.

I was so happy I brought the
soccer cards for the kids here.

It was unbelievable how
happy they were to get a

simple gift from
the United States.

All these sponsorships for orphans go
into a pool because we don't ever exclude

any orphans. So right now the
majority of it is going to education and,

primarily, mental
health counseling.

So because all of the Yazidi orphans
have had trauma, every single one of them,

and they've had no trauma
care whatsoever up to this point,

is that that's where the majority of
the funding goes to have qualified

professional mental health
counselors dealing with them.

We spent a day seeing as
many patients as we could,

evaluating what their
needs were.

It's much more organized than it
used to be. We used to be out on the,

just on the ground out
there in the sun, hot,

and all we had were tents. Now
they have a school, a soccer field,

this clinic area that we can be in.
And so it's much more organized.

The teams have gotten better
as they've come. So we have,

the pharmacy is really nice to have
pharmacists there and people that know all

the different medications.
The screening team was great,

and if you don't have a great
screening team, it's a long day.

We're going to call her and see if we can
work something out with the speech therapist.

Many of the children we saw would benefit
from early intervention like physical therapy,

occupational therapy, and speech
therapy. We saw about 30 patients today.

All kinds of cases from
hypertension, diabetes.

Actually that's one of the biggest
problems here, right? Osteoarthritis.

We have tons of people with osteoarthritis.
People with, you know, overweight.

But in general, if they would take
their medication, do their exercise,

they would have better health.
And that's just like the United States.

We can hand them all
the meds we want.

If they don't do what's right
their health is impaired.

They're just wonderful people,

and they're very grateful
when they come in to see you.

Most of them have a chronic
illness. When you came, you know,

four or five years ago, it
was all acute trauma, PTSD.

They had been fleeing from
ISIS. Everybody was crying,

everybody was displaced. They
were trying to find their families.

Now they've kind of settled in.
We got to visit a tent yesterday,

and visit with a family.
It's nice to come and help,

and hopefully we'll make
a little bit of an impact.

They'll know the outside
world helps and cares.

Today we're going to
go to the Yazidi camps,

and see the situation of
the people living here.

I've been a couple of these days
working as a doctor inside the building,

and I don't really know what the situation
is so we're going to walk through and

see what happens. Hello?

I was talking with some of these
kids last time and they were super nice.

We gave them some cards
and they enjoy it.

They love soccer over here. They're
huge fans of Barcelona and Real Madrid.

They really love it. Hello?

They live in a small area.

Sometimes family of 10 members
in a couple of square feet.

Hey, how are you? Hi.
Hi. What's your name?

They might be looking for cards because
the last time I was here I gave them some

soccer cards, but I
don't know. How are you?

You see, they are
very nice kids.

They have nothing. They have
nothing, believe me. But they are happy,

happy kids just going around
and playing with each other,

and you know, it's
amazing. Amazing,

amazing. Look at
this. Hello. Hello.

Look at these girls.
Drawing on the floor.

The Solar Light Project was something
that was started in East Africa where we

are providing solar lights
and water purifiers to

widows and orphans and families,

and it's something that's
very inexpensive but makes

a huge difference in the camps.

The solar light is instrumental because
they only get six hours of power a day.

There is no generator
in this camp.

That has to be on a government
level because this camp is big,

it's got four sections.
We need, you know,

it'd be like maybe even 500,000 per section
or a million to generate this entire

camp. For example, other camps
have generators, big ones,

and every home is connected to
the generator in the sections.

Not here. So six hours of power.
When those six hours are gone,

they sweat in the summer, and
they freeze in the winter.

All right, so let's go through the
camps a little bit. As you see, well,

they have some kind of system
here. The waters, residual waters,

but to live in
camps like this...

The other thing we're doing
is that water filtration kit,

they are not drinking clean
water. We want to clean the water,

and that will help with UTI's and kidney
infections and help in that way to just

fix it overnight.

Some of these kids get very, very sick
because of the condition of the water.

They get, some of them they
get diarrhea, you know,

they get vomiting.

And then, the saddest part
is they don't

have immediate healthcare.

This is something that
needs to be fixed.

It needs to be fixed
quickly. As you see here,

many people share these
community bathrooms.

Hundreds of people sharing the same
toilet because they don't have toilets

inside their tents.

See, all the floors are dirty.
The water's leaking.

And as I mentioned before, the conditions
of the water are not the proper ones,

are not hygenic.

And a lot of people get
sick because of the water.

So we are going to walk
through the tents.

As you see, they're
very, very small.

Hey, Naseed.

This is my friend, Naseed. He actually
invited me over a couple of days ago,

and he was super kind. He
invited me in his house,

and we were having some drinks,
some treats and they were extremely,

extremely kind to us. Okay. So I
have now one friend here in Kurdistan.

Seeing these kids out
here playing soccer,

it's hard to believe they
had escaped from ISIS.

ISIS is still of danger
to people living here.

Many of their family members were
captured, killed, or they're still missing,

even today. You want your
loved ones to be safe.

Living on with these
memories is not easy.

These kids are not able to go back to
the towns that they are from because those

villages were destroyed
and they aren't safe.

After meeting the people here
and hearing their stories,

I really began to understand how
complicated the issues here are.

So, you see many conditions,

most of them infections that they
pass from one person to another person.

A lot of respiratory tract
infections, eye infections.

Regular checkups will help
to prevent these infections.

Even though they
have almost nothing,

I have been welcomed here
with an amazing hospitality.

As you see, there are hundreds of
tents over here. Hundreds of tents.

You can see like old
people hang out together,

and sometimes they don't have
any job, so they want to do this.

They hang out together and speak
and I guess they share their stories. So,

I'm going to go ahead
and say hello to them.

Medically speaking, there are many
layers that need to be addressed here.

One layer is basic food and water along
with simple medicine and health care.

Then there are much deeper issues related
to the persecution that these people

have suffered for many years.

Some have a hard time finding a
reason to live, finding a purpose,

or believing in a safe
or happy future.

You see, very nice
people, very kind people.

Meeting people in the Yazidi
community has been an honor for me.

I really enjoyed
getting to know them.

Days here have turned into
many difficult years for

those hoping to move
on from these tents.

Pretty much everybody in the Yazidi camp
was in Sinjar and escaped from ISIS and

saw what ISIS had done.

They experienced violence of
ISIS and got away from it. Almost,

the camp director says, 95% were
there and witnessed it all. So,

pretty much every single one of them
experienced some pretty traumatic violence

or very traumatic
violence. And again,

the camp mentality is let's just keep
them safe and alive and give them bare

necessities, but that's it.

And mental health counseling
is not very high on the list

for a UN camp.

But it's extremely needed
there because all these kids,

you know,

have severe PTSD that's untreated and
a lot of the times PTSD doesn't flare up

for two or three or four years.
That's about where we are right now.

They've been there between
three and five years,

so it's kind of a really critical
time for them to get some help.

The camps have been up four years,
right now. Their tents are falling apart.

They get six hours
of electricity a day.

Conditions are really
eroding in some ways,

but there's no blue
sky for them. I mean,

that's where we're seeing suicides,
you know, in camp right now,

unfortunately, at sort of a steady
pace, and it's just them giving up.

They, can't leave, they
can't go home. They're stuck,

and no one's offering any path
forward for them. So, you know,

we're trying to
find the new normal,

you know, again, trying to
have some kind of, you know,

daily life hoping for hope.

We have some trauma counselors provided
by Father Aram who's a Catholic priest,

who's a Harvard educated trauma care
counselor or mental health counselor,

and he's one of the
only ones in the region.

And he comes up to the
camp with this team,

and they're providing professional
care to the orphans right now.

So, we have those 326
orphans documented,

and we have behind us the
life center. And, basically,

what we do is three
months at a time,

we'll run a three month
trauma care program.

And in that program,
we will do art therapy,

music therapy, dance therapy,

and then we'll bring in trained
professionals to do group therapy.

We take the most traumatized
first to the least.

So those that have actually either
been with ISIS or saw ISIS or saw

their parents...

These kids have seen and experienced
the most horrific trauma you can imagine.

Some of them saw the whites of
ISIS as they were fleeing from Sinjar.

Some of them were taken by ISIS.

Some of them escaped from ISIS, some
of them were rescued. Those, of course,

are going to be the ones
that are the worse off.

I'll leave it to
your imagination.

We met a young girl in the camp today
who has recently escaped from ISIS.

She had been held by them, and a
few weeks ago, she was able to escape.

Sadly, her story's similar to
many of the children's in this camp.

Oh, look at this. He speaks
English. My name is Joseph.

What is your name?

So I'm talking to him,

and he's actually talking to me in
English the most he can and he has a good

pronunciation so I
might, I don't know,

in the future give him
a book or something.

Because he's very interested in learning
another language. Okay. He said, thank you.

These kids are amazing.
They are great,

but when you hear stories of
their life, it is very tragic.

We might not be able
to change the past,

but we can work together to make
a better future for these children.

So we have the orphan program and
we have the English learning center,

and we need people. The
type of people that we need,

we need people who are willing to
do conversational English with them.

They don't necessarily have to
be ESL certified, but if they are,

that would be awesome.

(Counting...)

For you, but you play
with everybody.

I think the biggest thing that I
noticed when I first went to Kurdistan,

first was the refugee camps, which
really struck me that, you know,

any one of these people could
literally be your next door neighbor.

So you get people who are literally
just picked up out of their house with

whatever clothes and
belongings they had,

moved to a new location and they're
educated, there's doctors, there's lawyers,

there's engineers, there's nurses,
there's dentists, there's students,

there's children.

And it's as if you just picked up a large
US city and just told everybody "you"

have 24 hours to be
out of your house,

take what you can and leave." And they've
been in camps for at least five years now

with no end in sight.

And are trying to lead
some sort of normal life,

and it's shockingly
difficult because, you know,

the average stay in a UN
camp is about 17 or 18 years.

And so you get children who
spend their entire childhood

growing up in a tent in a camp.

And it really shocked me that there wasn't
a better method to move people on and

reintegrate them somewhere rather
than just warehousing them in a camp.

I promised to one of the children,
I'm going to give them a ball,

but also have some cards. These
balls actually are meant to

found one of the

first soccer junior
leagues in the camp.

But I decided to give one
of the kids one soccer ball.

He was extremely nice,

but I think they're going to be
very happy with this soccer ball.

Okay. All right. Let's go

A few months back, we did
the Yazidi world cup in camp,

so we had 16 teams of the guys
and had this great big tournament.

And then had the world
cup championship with,

we had paid refs and
an award ceremony.

They got metals and they had
cheering sections, you know,

and what it was was just a great
relief from the current situation.

Just something else to think about,
you know? Something to enjoy, have fun,

get excited about and just break
the monotony of camp. And then,

we did it for the girls
about three weeks later then,

so we had the girls Yazidi
world cup. So, yeah.

Activities like that just, I
mean, it's good for, you know,

it's good physically for
them to get out of the

camp or the tents
and play sports.

But it also kind of clears their heads
a little bit and gives them something

else to think about,
you know, enjoy it.

Barcelona or Real Madrid?
I'm Barcelona. Oh my goodness.

There are a lot of people
for Barcelona here.

You, Real?
Real Mardid, yeah.

We've had a great week. It's been a
very different week than my other trips.

When I first came, it was more crisis
mode. First couple of trips I came,

people were scattered in
villages. They were in tents.

There was no really running
water. We had well water.

Supplies weren't getting in.
We were bringing supplies.

And now this many years later is really
settled communities that we're visiting.

Imagine your kids living
in these conditions.

We have everything. We have
healthcare, we have schools,

we have access to
food very quickly.

These kids sometimes have no
access to healthcare for months,

and they live under
these conditions.

I will continue to speak on behalf
of the kind people living here.

They also deserve to
live a peaceful life.

♪ Ey Raqib ♪

It is important to bring awareness
to the displaced people living in this

region, whether Syrian,
Kurdish, or Yazidi,

they need our support.

We need people here. We need people that
help. We need doctors, nurses, psychologists,

all those people to come and
be kind with this culture.

They really, really need it.

Look at how happy they are, how
happy they are. Oh my goodness.

This is just great.
This is just great.

As we were walking through the camps,
we saw a couple of cases, and one of them,

it was an eye infection,
nothing major,

but the biggest thing is
the happiness of these kids.

I had a small present for them,

but eventually we're going to
give them more soccer balls,

and then we're planning to do
a soccer league here for them.

So they're going to
be extremely happy.

So, I would say it's a really good
trip. I will be back, I don't know when,

probably this year
or early next year,

and I encourage anyone to come
and just see how the people are.

And don't forget them.

Come over here.
Come over here.

Bye!