"We love Kurdish folk music. It talks about what the Kurds have endured, the wars, the emigration, the murders," said Perwine Saleh, 20, who plays the santour (table zither), tambourine and duduk (Armenian flute).

Perwine and her sister Norshine, 23, are Kurds from Syria. In 2014, they fled to Turkey, at the height of the siege of their city of Kobane by the Islamic State (IS) group. The following year, Kurdish fighters managed to retake Kobane from the jihadists with the support of Western forces.

Back home in 2019, Norshine and Perwine finally decided to pack again in 2022, this time for fear of an offensive from Turkey.

Photo taken on May 1, 2023 showing Norshine (R) and Perwine Saleh (L), two Syrian Kurdish sisters, musicians, who live in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous region of Iraqi © Kurdistan Safin HAMID / AFP

Today, they live with two of their brothers in Erbil, capital of the autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq. Music allows them to boil the pot, but also to preserve the memory of their community.

It has been eight years since the jihadists were driven out of Kobane. Yet Perwine says she is still "haunted" by her memories of ISIS: "men in black waving black flags who wanted to make our lives dark."

"I'm a foreigner"

One spring evening, Norshine and Perwine perform outdoors at a restaurant in Erbil. Perwine plays the Armenian flute, while Norshine captivates the audience with his voice.

"I'm a stranger, without you, mother, my wings are broken/ I'm a stranger and life elsewhere is like a prison," she sings.

Music has always been a part of Norshine and Perwine's lives. When they were little, before sleeping their mother sang them an aria, accompanied by their father and his tambourine.

Photo taken on May 1, 2023 showing Norshine (R) and Perwine Saleh (L), two Syrian Kurdish sisters, at a concert in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous region of Iraqi © Kurdistan Safin HAMID / AFP

Their passage from Syria to Iraqi Kurdistan traumatized them. Before letting them cross the border, the Syrian soldiers asked them to play something on them. And to warn them: if they did not like what the two sisters played... they would confiscate their instruments.

"We played crying. When we finished, they smiled and said, +now you can pass+," Norshine recalls.

In Erbil, the duo usually performs at the Beroea restaurant. Ryad Othmane, one of the owners who is himself a Syrian Kurd, said he was "not surprised" to learn that the sisters braved a thousand dangers to escape Kobane. The Kurds "have spent their whole lives fleeing," he said.

Norshine and Perwine only dream of one thing: to be able to go home. "I hope the war will end soon so that we are finally free," Norshine says. "When we get back, we will be able to play music and teach it to the children."

© 2023 AFP