I Survived ISIS: One Woman's Story of Escaping ISIS and Surviving the Yazidi Genocide

Roza Alomar is a young woman from northern Iraq, where she once lived a peaceful life with her family in the mountainside community of Shingal. When she was only ten years old, Daesh (ISIS) descended upon the Yazidi community with deadly, genocidal intent. Roza’s grandfather was shot dead for helping diverse community members cope with the terrifying invasion; soon after this, her father was taken, and is presumed murdered, along with so many of her other relatives. Towns, villages, temples, schools, hospitals, and farms were all plundered and destroyed. A systematic campaign was unleashed upon Yazidi people not only to mass murder and enslave them, but to eradicate all trace of their religion, customs, identity, and way of life. Roza endured these terrible events alongside her mother, her five siblings, her aunts, and many cousins. After multiple attempts to escape, finally she found safety in Calgary, Canada, where she was able to attend high school and tell her story. Roza’s memoir, I Survived ISIS: One Woman's Story of Escaping ISIS and Surviving the Yazidi Genocide (Dundurn Press, 2026) is her own harrowing tale of suffering, resilience, courage, and overcoming unspeakable obstacles on the way to freedom. Sean Steel is a teacher in the Calgary Board of Education. He met Roza in 2019 when she was his student in the LEAD (Literacy, English, and Academic Development) Program. Sean met Roza’s family, and he became interested in learning about the culture and history of the Yazidi people. In 2023, he travelled to Iraq with Roza to help her research and write a book about her life, to tell her story, and to create an important historical record of the 2014 genocide. 90 Participants