Accessibility links

Breaking News

Shoura

An Experiment in Reconciliation

When you ask children of Islamic State militants what they remember about their fathers, they don’t talk about crimes or extremism. Usually they remember things like outings for ice cream, or when their dads played with them.

Now, their fathers are all in hiding, in jail or dead. Tens of thousands of children in Iraq and Syria are growing up in desolate camps, often stigmatized as the children of terrorists.

This isolation could breed radicalism and the next generation of extremist militants. It is also a humanitarian crisis, with women and children who committed no crimes now perpetually homeless, impoverished and entirely dependent on aid organizations and the state for survival.

But in Shoura, they say, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Shoura

SYRIA

IRAN

IRAQ

SAUDI ARABIA

Shoura

SYRIA

Baghdad

IRAQ

SAUDI ARABIA

Shoura

SYRIA

Baghdad

IRAQ

SAUDI ARABIA

Reporter, writer,
& narrator

Heather Murdock

Camera

Felipe Paiva

Field Producer

Halan Ibrahim Shekha

Supervising producer
& video editor

Brian Allen

Editor

Elizabeth Arrott

Animator

Brian Williamson

XS
SM
MD
LG