After passing multiple checkpoints, we finally turned the cars towards devastated Christian villages. Once thriving, vibrant, green communities, today the churches, homes, and businesses were in ruins, having been decimated by the Islamic State (ISIS, or IS). Hardly a building stood intact. It was a war zone, and eerily empty.
We traveled with five families who were returning to their former homes for the first time. They fled in August 2014, when the Islamic State invaded their Christian town. The first they knew of the attack was the shelling that killed a woman and two children.