Dibaga, Iraq – Residents of Jarallah, a small village in the Nineveh plains of northern Iraq, did not leave immediately after the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group took control of the area in August 2014.

Even as electricity and water became scarce, the village’s population of about 260 people remained in place. But as Kurdish Peshmerga forces battled ISIL during the harsh winter, the residents of Jarallah uprooted to Dibaga, near Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region.

The owner of a local chicken farm took them in, and has since been helping to care for them, bringing ice to keep their food cool and gasoline for a generator.

The villagers have made the chicken farm home, turning one room into a mosque as they slowly rebuild their lives. They have found jobs in the fields – tending sheep, harvesting wheat and picking vegetables. Many seem to understand that it may be a long time before they will be able to return home.