Yazidi parents in Iraq whose family has survived atrocities at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) named their newborn child “Trump” within minutes after Republican nominee Donald Trump became the U.S. President-elect last Tuesday, reports the Haym Salomon Center.
“We have been going through a never-ending genocide over the last two years at the hands of ISIS, and [President Barack] Obama failed to take out ISIS or help liberate the thousands of Yazidi women and children that are still enslaved by ISIS,” said the father of the new baby boy Trump. “I hope President Trump will at last take out ISIS so we can return home and rebuild our lives.”
The new mother was reportedly in labor as the U.S. presidential election vote count rolled in. An hour before Trump officially became the winner, she gave birth to a baby boy.
“An hour later [after the baby had been born], mom and dad named their beautiful child ‘Trump,’” adds the Haym Salomon Center, noting:
This story begins over two years ago, when the same Yazidi mother was pregnant with her first child and ISIS attacked the village where she and her husband (names withheld due to safety concerns) planned to raise their family. Running for their lives, they escaped to Sinjar Mountain where they, along with thousands of others, were stranded with no food or water for seven days. Lacking the essentials and surrounded by ISIS, Dilbreen was born in that mountain camp on January 4, 2015.
One year to the day later, Dilbreen was asleep in a tent with thousands of other displaced Yazidis, when a gas heater malfunctioned and fire broke out. With mom outside baking bread for her son’s birthday, she was unable to protect him from the burning plastic ceiling that melted and fell on the child.
Dilbreen was lucky to be alive, but had to endure the pain and disfiguration caused by severe burns to his face.
Dilbreen is reportedly receiving the care he needs in the United States, where is expected to be reunited with his parents and baby brother Trump, courtesy of the nonprofit Yazidi American Women Organization. That organization was launched by a Yazidi woman named Adlay Kejjan who survived ISIS.
Kejjan, who works with the pro-Israel organization StandWithUS and a cross-section of religious communities to bring international awareness to the plight of the Yazidis, became Dilbreen’s guardian in the U.S.
Although the Yazidi baby may be the first to be named after Trump soon after his elected election, he is not the first to take the President-elect’s namesake.
Nearly three months before the Republican presidential candidate won the general election, a couple in Kenya named their newborn child “Donald Trump.” Kenyans have long kept a tradition of giving their children names pulled from the headlines, including naming children after Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama, and Air Force One.
The Yazidis, along with other ethno-religious minorities in Iraq, have been the targets of the Islamic State’s genocide campaign against non-Sunni Muslims. To justify genocide against the minority group, ISIS has deemed Yazidis “devil worshippers” and “not people of the book.”
Thousands of Yazidis, particularly women, are believed to be still held captive by the jihadist group, many as sexual slaves.
“ISIS is reportedly holding 3,200 Yazidi women and girls as sex slaves. Over 5,000 have been killed and 400,000 displaced by the terror group,” notes the Haym Salomon Center. “These numbers reflect only the towns liberated by Yazidi and Kurdish fighters backed by U.S.- and British-led coalition airstrikes.”
Soliders have found multiple mass graves in the Yazidi towns that have been liberated by the U.S.-led coalition.
“Less than half of Yazidi towns have been liberated,” points out the Haym Salomon Center. “If and when the rest are set free, the death toll and the number of kidnapped and injured are expected to rise dramatically.”
Some Yazidis feel that they have been forgotten and abandoned by the international community.
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