For Yazidis, the dangerous path to Europe seems safer than a return home

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• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  The plight of the Yazidi religious sect in Iraq was a major factor in pushing the United States to war against the Islamic State group last year.

  Last month, their homeland in and around Sinjar, Iraq, was liberated, but thousands have no intention of staying.

  Special correspondent Jane Arraf brings us the story of some trying to leave for Europe.

• JANE ARRAF:

  Amira Khan and her family are planning to leave any day to be smuggled across the border to Turkey. Going by boat from Turkey to Greece is the cheapest way to get to Europe.

  She's afraid her two sons, Madares and Nunber, could drown, as so many have trying to reach Europe's shores. Tens of thousands have risked that dangerous passage this year, arriving on islands like Lesbos. It's a perilous journey, made even more so by winter coming.

  But many Yazidis are even more afraid of going to back to Sinjar, where ISIS captured or killed so many of them when they took over their villages in the summer of 2014. ISIS considers Yazidis infidels and vowed to either convert or kill them all.

  Amira says she faints when she even thinks of ISIS.

• AMIRA KHAN, Iraq (through interpreter):

  It's dangerous, but what can I say? I have to take my family and my kids. That's the way to get out. We're not going to return to Sinjar. It's dangerous either to stay or to leave. We might not survive, but we have to try.

• JANE ARRAF:

  A backlash in Europe against refugees was already building as their numbers swelled. Now, after the attacks in Paris, Europe's open doors are suddenly closing.

  Tighter border controls have made it much more difficult to get to Western Europe. But thousands are still trying. For just over $2,000 each, Amira's family will be smuggled to Europe for what they hope will be a new start.

  Her husband, Muhsin, will be one of his first five brothers to go, but not the last.

• MUHSIN, Iraq (through interpreter):

  My brothers collected all the money they have and gave it to me, so I can make the journey. All the brothers have given me their money, and once I get there, I can help them.

• JANE ARRAF:

  Their village is still under ISIS control. They say almost everything there has been destroyed by the fighting. The Yazidis lived peacefully with their Muslim Arab neighbors in Iraq for years, but that's all over.

• MUHSIN (through interpreter):

  A lot of people have died and people have drowned at sea. It's still better than going back to living among the Arabs. It's either leave or face death here.

• JANE ARRAF:

  Many accuse their Arab neighbors of joining ISIS and killing their people, inflaming their women, and stealing their homes. Some want to stay and avenge what was done to them.

• MAN (through interpreter):

  As long as we can breathe, as long as we have a drop of blood left in us, no matter how far away they run, we will chase them. We're not going to abandon our land or our mountain.

• JANE ARRAF:

  Instead of a temporary refuge while they wait to return home, for many, this former construction site has become a way station on the journey to Europe.

  Almost everyone here is from Sinjar. They have turned this empty field into essentially a village. But even though U.S. airstrikes and Kurdish forces have retaken their own towns and villages on Sinjar Mountain, almost no one here plans to go home again.

  A lot of the younger people are trying to raise enough money to leave. They say, if they had the money, almost everyone would be gone by now. Hassan, as he wants us to call him, is one of the smugglers getting people to Europe.

  Over the past two years, he says he's delivered more than 1,000 Yazidis and Kurds to Turkey, where his connections get them to Greece or Eastern Europe. There is no lack of business, but it's gotten a little bit harder for smugglers.

• HASSAN, Smuggler (through interpreter):

  The prices right now in the last four or five months are the cheapest than any other time. Previously, the price was $12,500 per person and you had to walk part of the way. But now, until we hand you over to a Croatian organization, it's $4,000. Until they seal off the borders for everyone, people will just go.

• JANE ARRAF:

  He says he never smuggles anyone he doesn't know, and he doesn't smuggle Arabs.

  At one of the biggest bus companies in Dohuk, two buses a day take passengers straight to Istanbul. Seventy dollars and a passport will get you a seat. For many, it's a one-way trip. Rizgar is 18 and traveling with his brother. His brother will stay in Turkey and pay the smugglers the $8,000 they agreed on once Rizgar arrives in Austria.

  Another brother, now an Austrian citizen, is waiting for him there.

• RIZGAR, Iraq (through interpreter):

  I want to build a future for myself. I can see myself learning their language. It's a very beautiful thing for people to learn different languages and to go to school. I want to get an education, because it wasn't good here. ISIS came, and we couldn't cope.

• JANE ARRAF:

  The bus pulled up to the start of their 22-hour trip to Istanbul. Rizgar has heard of the doors in Europe closing for refugees, but he says he believes people will welcome them because they know of the tragedy of what happened to Yazidis.

  Misan is taking her two children and four nieces and nephews to Istanbul to be smuggled to Germany. Her husband and other relatives are already there.

  "Everybody else is going. We're going, too," she says.

  They don't look back. There are no tearful goodbyes here from the relatives seeing them off. Most of them are confident they will see them again in Europe.

  For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Jane Arraf in Dohuk, Iraq.