Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

[Anthea]

Yazidi IDP camp on fire

A camp housing Yazidi internally displaced persons (IDPs) near Zakho city, Duhok province caught fire early Saturday. At least 12 tents have burnt, according to civil defence. No casualties have been reported

Bajet Kandala houses 1,699 families, numbering 8,450 individuals, according to data provided by the UN’s Refugee Agency (UNHCR) for May.

Fires are a common occurrence in the Kurdistan Region’s displacement camps.

A fire in the same camp in late June caused the hospitalisation of at least ten people and the burning of 20 tents.

Thousands of Yazidis still remain in IDP camps despite Islamic State (ISIS) being driven away from their lands, as their homes are in need of reconstruction. The presence of several armed forces in the Yazidi heartland of Shingal is believed to be one of the key obstacles before the returning of people to the district.

Murad Ismael, a Yazidi activist, expressed his concern over repeated fire incidents in the Yazidi camps.

“I don’t know what to say. We are sick of our own voice[s] making appeals for help. I am done appealing. I am one of few people in [the] Yazidi community who still hold on ‘hope’ & that hope is just getting thinner every day,” he tweeted following the fire incident in Bajet Kandala.

He added that the money Iraqi politicians “steal from oil smuggling… is enough to bring all IDPs back to their homes & give each family $10k to rebuild their homes. Corruption has made them blind, senseless, & inhuman.”

https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/03092022

[Anthea]

Yazidis migrate en masse

citing financial instability

SHARIA CAMP, Kurdistan Region - Poverty, instability, and unemployment have driven a large number of Yazidis to take illegal and dangerous routes to Europe in recent months, members of the community told Rudaw on Friday.

Zidane Khalaf, 18, and his friend Wisam Mishko, 17, spent eight years at Duhok’s Sharia camp without having a proper job, and access to clean water and electricity. To them, there was no glimmer of hope to return to the Yazidi heartland of Shingal as it was controlled by a myriad of armed groups.

Mishko and Khalaf packed their stuff, and prepared to leave for Turkey, then to Greece, and from there to western European countries.

"The situation is unstable [at the camp]. We have been living in a camp for eight years now," Khalaf told Rudaw's Naif Ramadhan before crossing to Turkey. "There is no electricity and our water is contaminated."

He added that the presence of multiple armed groups in Shingal is a major push behind their migration.

There are currently more than a hundred Yazidis stranded in Greece with the numbers keep getting higher.

A group of 150 Yazidis from Shingal have been stranded outside refugee camps in Greece for nearly a week now as Greek authorities have denied them access to camps and the right to return to their homeland.

Greece is a key route used by refugees and migrants as an entry point into the European Union.

The lack of job opportunities and security are the main reasons driving civilians to leave Shingal, a Yazidi migrant stuck in Greek territories said.

A total of 4,377 Yazidis have migrated out of Shingal and Duhok camps since August, Sherzad Pirmusa, head of the Duhok-based Alind Organization for Youth Democratization said on Thursday.

Scores of people, mainly youth, from across the Kurdistan Region and Iraq take to smuggling routes on a daily basis out of desperation, in hopes of escaping the endless crises in the country, including the lack of employment, political instability, and corruption.

Murad Ismael, president of the Sinjar Academy, drew attention to the increasing rate of migration out of Shingal indicated by civilians selling their properties to afford the process. He advised the people not to sell their real estate, saying "this is the land of your ancestors and fathers, and you must keep it wherever you go."

Hundreds of thousands of Yazidis fled their homes in the summer of 2014 when the Islamic State (ISIS) seized control of their homeland, seeking shelter on Mount Shingal, and then in the Kurdistan Region with a limited number resettled in Europe and North America.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/05092022

[Anthea]

Rescued after 8 years

A young woman has been rescued after an eight-year ordeal that saw her repeatedly sold, raped and enslaved by ISIS militants, officials in Syria tell CBS News. Her rescue began with a massive operation to root out ISIS sleeper cells and weapons hidden among the tens of thousands of refugees stuck in a sprawling camp in the northeast Syrian desert

The notorious Al-Hol camp is run by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a mostly Kurdish umbrella group that was a vital American ally during the U.S. military's operations against ISIS in the region. During a recent raid, SDF forces found explosives, weapons, ammunition and tunnels used by ISIS members to smuggle the illicit items into and around the sprawling camp.

Syamad Ali, a spokesperson for the YPG, the SDF's main military force, told CBS News that interrogations during the raid revealed the daunting scope of the danger ISIS still poses inside the camp.

But there was also good news: During interrogations, an ISIS suspect gave away the location of a tent where a young Yazidi girl was said to be held captive — one of the thousands of Yazidi women and girls swept up by ISIS militants as they seized the ethnic group's homelands in Syria and Iraq almost a decade ago.

Now 18, the Yazidi girl was abducted from her village of Kocho, 15 miles south of Sinjar, Iraq, in 2014, Ali told CBS News.

She was one of more than 6,000 Yazidi women and girls believed to have been abducted by ISIS as the group seized control of a third of Iraq and Syria's combined territory in 2014.

She was only nine years old when the terrorists raided her village, where she lived with her parents and her brother and sister. Both of her siblings are still missing.

As they did in countless other Yazidi villages in the foothills of the Sinjar Mountains, ISIS militants killed the men in Kocho and took the women and children as slaves.
Yazidi woman freed from ISIS captivity in Sinjar returns for revenge on extremists 01:44

Wafaa's father managed to escape after being wounded and left for dead. He's now in Canada with other family members. Wafaa, her mother and her deaf sister were taken away, separated, and then sold as slaves to ISIS members.

Wafaa told her rescuers that she was sold six times, in Mosul, Iraq, and across the border in ISIS' former Syrian stronghold of Raqqa. She was forced to convert to Islam and married twice to ISIS fighters who would routinely rape her during the group's rein over its self-declared "caliphate."

After the U.S.-led coalition — with significant help from the SDF — managed in early 2019 to force ISIS out of the territory it controlled, thousands of its fighters and their families surrendered to SDF forces and were placed in the Al Hol camp.

As the ongoing raids inside the camp show, the territorial defeat was neither the end of ISIS, nor the end of Wafaa's nightmare.

She told her rescuers that she was brought to the camp with the other wives and children of her last husband. They kept her confined, rarely allowing her out of the tent. She wasn't allowed any contact with camp guards or the outside world, Ali told CBS News.

When she was finally rescued, "she was scared, shocked and unable to believe she is free," he said.

A video provided by the Women's Protection Units shows Wafaa speaking in a video call with members of her family. It was the first time she had spoken to any of them since she was seized in 2014.

"I don't want you to worry about anything now, my darling, soon we will be together again," her father tells her as she sits with a look of shock still painted on her face. They had to have the conversation in Arabic, as Wafaa can't remember how to speak her native Kurdish.

"I hope so," she replies.

Her father then puts an older woman in front of the camera.

"Do you recognize this woman?" he asks his daughter.

"Yes, she is my grandmother," Wafaa says softly.

SDF officials tell CBS News that Wafaa is receiving psychological support before being sent back to Iraq to be reunited with family members.

The Al-Hol camp was the primary facility in the region used to shelter civilians fleeing ISIS-held territory as the group lost ground.

By March 2019, when ISIS lost its caliphate, the camp was home to nearly 70,000 people. There are still about 55,000 there, including 28,000 Iraqis, 19,000 Syrians and 8,000 people from other countries.

Most of their home nations have denied them the right to return, arguing that they pose a security threat.

The U.S. has repatriated virtually all of its citizens from Al-Hol, leaving behind only Hoda Muthana and her half-Dutch child. The mother, a Yemeni-American dual national, was stripped of her U.S. citizenship.

"Al Hol camp is a dangerous place. ISIS ideology is strongly taught and practiced in the camp," the YPG's Ali told CBS News. "The situation is a constant and serious danger."

"Wafaa could have faced death at any moment if she tried making contact with guards or the outside world," he said. "Many people get killed, executed and beheaded for breaking ISIS rules in the camp. So far, hundreds have died."

CBS News has visited the camp several times, and the atmosphere has always felt hostile. In 2019, guards there told CBS News that they called the camp the "Islamic State," because while they controlled the fence, inside, ISIS was in charge.

ISIS militants still mingle among the refugees, and the forces that run the sprawling camp say they can do little to change the realities within its perimeter.

Yazidism, a religion that predates Islam, is considered heretical devil worship by ISIS and other Sunni Muslim extremist groups. Followers have long been targeted — along with Christians and other religious minorities in the region — by ISIS and al Qaeda.

When ISIS took control of Christian and Yazidi areas, they would commonly force Christians to choose between execution, conversion to Islam, or fleeing ISIS territory.

Many Yazidis were given no such options.

Officials tell CBS News there are likely other girls just like Wafaa, still imprisoned within the fences around Al-Hol.

Link to Article - Photos - Videos:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yazidi-you ... -hol-camp/

[Anthea]

Yazidis outside Greek camp

Nearly 120 migrants from the Yazidi minority have been blocked from entering a migrant camp in northern Greece, forcing them to sleep outside for two weeks

Hundreds have sought shelter in Greece, which until recently had dozens of camps housing asylum seekers around the country.

Authorities have been shutting most of them down after protests from local communities.

The camp near the northern city of Serres already houses some 1,000 people, including 700 Yazidis, most of the community currently in Greece.

Officials say it is at capacity.

"We have been sleeping on the ground for the past 12 days," 22-year-old Fahad told AFP outside the camp Tuesday.

"Every day, we beg to be allowed to enter the camp. No one is helping us. We are scared and have nowhere else to go," he said.

Greek officials have offered to allow entry only to women and children among the new group.

"The camp has no more room," a Greek camp source said on condition of anonymity, confirming that there are about 120 Yazidis stranded outside.

"There are around 60 beds that will be made available to women or children if necessary. But most of those sleeping outside are young men," the camp staffer said.

At the jihadists' hands, thousands of Yazidi women and teenagers were subjected to kidnapping, rape and other inhumane treatment, such as being held as slaves, the UN has said.

Outside the camp, Ibda Adhim, 21, says members of his group each paid 1,000 euros to smugglers in Turkey for help in reaching Greece.

"We walked for five days to get to Greece," Adhim said, showing his bruised feet.

"We were told to go to another camp where Afghans and Syrians live but we are afraid to go there," he said.

Members of the group who spoke to AFP said they want to stay in Greece.

Murad Ismael, co-founder of global Yazidi organisation Yazda, on Tuesday said the Greek migration ministry "assured me they are working on the issue and it will be addressed as soon as possible".

In a statement to AFP, Ismael said officials had promised to provide shelter either at the city of Serres, or at another camp.

To discourage migration networks, Greece's conservative government has put emphasis on closing down dozens of camps that once housed asylum seekers nationwide.

The country currently has 34 camps compared to 121 two years ago, and plans to close another two, Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi said in a weekend interview.

Link to Article - Photos:

https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/29 ... Greek-camp

[Anthea]

Another Yazidi woman free

The Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) rescued a second Yazidi woman from the clutches of the Islamic State (ISIS) in the notorious al-Hol camp in northeast Syria (Rojava), the force reported Tuesday amid an ongoing anti-ISIS operation in the camp

The woman was kidnapped from the Yazidi heartland of Shingal when ISIS swept across northern Iraq in 2014, inflicting countless atrocities on the minority group, according to the Kurdish forces.

Earlier in September, the YPJ freed a Yazidi woman from the notorious al-Hol camp. She described the horrors she and her deaf sister experienced through their horrific cross-border journey in slave markets from Iraq into Syria in ISIS captivity to an SDF-affiliated outlet.

ISIS launched a brazen offensive on the Yazidi heartland of Shingal during their conquest of parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014, committing countless atrocities including genocide against the ethnoreligious group. More than 6 thousand Yazidis were kidnapped by the terror group with thousands still remaining missing.

The majority of captives are held in al-Hol camp, according to data obtained by Rudaw English from Khayri Bozani, former head of the Yazidi affairs at the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) endowment ministry.

The rescue of the two women comes amid an ongoing security operation in the camp targeting ISIS cells that was launched in late August by the Kurdish internal security forces (Asayish) in cooperation with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the US-led coalition.

The operation has led to the arrests of over 200 ISIS suspects so far, including 32 women, according to data sent to Rudaw English by the Rojava Information Center (RIC) on Sunday.

Yesterday, the 19th day of 'Operation Humanity and Security' concluded in al-Hol camp. Trenches, ISIS educational notebooks, torture tools, mobile phones, and military bags were reportedly uncovered through the Asayish's tent combing procedures. pic.twitter.com/OEZeUslyrW
— Rojava Information Center (@RojavaIC) September 13, 2022

Al-Hol camp is located in Hasaka province and has infamously been branded a breeding ground for ISIS, with authorities describing the sprawling facility as a “ticking time bomb,” saying the situation in the camp is “very dangerous.”

A video posted by SDF spokesperson Aram Hanna on Tuesday depicts children with suspected ties to ISIS in al-Hol camp portraying gestures of beheading and throwing rocks towards a cameraman as he records the camp.

Kurdish, Iraqi, and international officials have repeatedly warned of ISIS indoctrination in the squalid camp.

“The situation needs more efforts made with real and international solidarity that supports our efforts [to defeat ISIS],” Hanna said.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeas ... /130920221

[Anthea]

Yazidis blocked from returning home

Eight years after the reactionary Islamic State’s genocidal attack on the Yazidi people in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Yazidis remain determined to return to their towns and villages and rebuild their lives, following the defeat of the Islamic State

Yazidis continue to face enormous political and military obstacles erected by the competing capitalist powers intervening in Iraq, and rival forces within that country itself.

Yazidis are an ethnic minority with their own particular religion living across northern Iraq and parts of Syria.

On Aug. 3, 2014, Islamic State forces that had seized Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, invaded Sinjar province, the Yazidi heartland. Some 1,300 people were killed in the first days of Islamic State’s murderous rampage.

Thousands of women and children were taken to Mosul and other parts of the Islamist group’s self-proclaimed caliphate, where they were enslaved and sold, used as sex slaves and forced to “convert” to Islam.

In November 2015 a coalition of Kurdish and Yazidi militias retook much of the area, backed by Washington’s air assaults, which destroyed large parts of the town of Sinjar.

Yazidi families are still trying to find 3,000 people who are missing. Out of a pre-2014 population of 560,000, some 200,000 are still languishing in squalid camps in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, while 160,000 have sought refuge elsewhere.

“We still have our community scattered in more than 15 camps in Kurdistan and Iraq itself,” Haider Elias, president of the U.S.-based Yazidi rights organization, Yazda, told participants at an Aug. 1 online memorial of the Islamic State’s assault.

Sinjar is among the areas of Iraq under dispute between the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil. Both governments, Yazidi forces, the Iranian and Turkish governments and a range of militias have all been vying for influence there. As the U.S. rulers have scaled back their military intervention in Iraq, these rivalries have sharpened.

Yazidis have made efforts to move back to their hometowns and rebuild despite widespread destruction, lack of basic infrastructure and ongoing clashes between rival forces. At the beginning of May thousands were forced to flee Sinjar to camps in Iraq’s Kurdish region after the Iraqi government launched an attack on Sinjar Resistance Units in Sinuny, the second clash there in a few weeks. At least two people were killed and a dozen wounded in two days of fighting.

The Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) were formed in alliance with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey, in response to the 2014 Islamic State attack. Over decades the PKK has carried out an armed struggle against the government of Turkey, which denies national rights to the Kurdish people of that country.

Local residents of Sinjar took to the streets in response to the assaults, blocking roads to demand all armed forces leave the region. “Please let us lead our life,” Salah Salim told KirkukNow. “We thank everyone who defended our people and land but now we do not want any armed forces except for the local police. We won’t stop till all armed groups retreat.”

Those groups include units of the Popular Mobilization Forces, a militia based among Shiite Iraqis backed by Tehran. It advances the Iranian rulers’ intervention in Iraq, which has expanded their political and military clout across the Middle East.

Yazidis have also been hit by Turkish government attacks. A June 15 airstrike in Sinuny, widely reported to have come from a Turkish drone, killed a 12-year-old boy and injured several members of his family, as well as four YBS militiamen.

In 2020 the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil signed an agreement that called for withdrawal from Sinjar of all forces other than Iraqi police, with the Kurdish Regional Government having administrative control. Forces in Iraq that are allied with Tehran blocked implementation of the agreement.

In Afrin, an area of Syria controlled by Ankara-backed militias, civil war and oppressive conditions imposed by Islamist forces have reduced the Yazidi community from tens of thousands to a few thousand.

In a solidarity message to the Aug. 1 memorial of the 2014 slaughter, the Communist League in the U.K. said “working people around the world were horrified by the launch of Islamic State’s genocidal campaign against the Yazidi people — the culmination of years of Islamist terror attacks against Yazidis and other minorities in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-U.K. invasion of Iraq.”

The ongoing assaults on the Yazidi people “are an indictment of imperialism and its growing world disorder. The horrors visited on the peoples of Iraq, Syria and the region over decades are a glimpse of the future of all of humanity so long as this system of exploitation and oppression remains in place.”

For working-class parties in the U.K. and elsewhere, “telling the truth about the fight of the Yazidi people for their very existence is a basic duty. Nothing shows better the enormous responsibility we have to prevent imperialism’s ongoing march toward fascism and world war.”

https://themilitant.com/2022/09/17/yazi ... mic-state/

[Anthea]

YAZIDI CHILDREN LIVING IN FEAR

Yazidi children whose lives were shattered by ISIS attacks in northern Iraq eight years ago must not be forgotten by the international community, which must help fulfil their right to an education and hopes for a better future, Save the Children said today

About 400,000 Yazidis – an ethnic and religious minority group – were captured, killed, or forced to flee from their ancestral homeland in Sinjar in August 2014 after ISIS crossed the border from Syria. The United Nations has recognised the treatment of the Yazidi as genocide.

Thousands of Yazidi women and young girls were abducted, experienced rape and other forms of sexual violence, and many remain missing. Young boys were separated from their families and forcibly recruited into ISIS.

Eight years on, many Yazidi children are still displaced from their communities. Many live in unsafe environments where they are surrounded by physical reminders of the violence experienced at the hands of ISIS, including destroyed homes, schools, and hospitals.

To understand the impact of the genocide on young children, Save the Children spoke to 117 children aged between 7 and 17, who were very young or just infants when they lost mothers, fathers, siblings, and extended family in the violence, as well as 33 caregivers.

Children of all ages told Save the Children about their fears and the lack of safety and security in their daily lives. Amongst adolescents, 39 of the 40 involved in the study said they did not feel safe where they live and worried about abductions, sexual violence, recruitment by armed groups, and further family loss or separation among other issues.

“Every day we see young children carrying weapons and working with the security forces – armed groups, and they are still young, less than 18 years old,” said Khalid*, a boy aged in the 7-10 age group whose real name was withheld for security reasons.

Language barriers in particular were raised as challenges as some children have forgotten their native Kurmanji, or were born in captivity and never learned it, making it difficult to communicate and connect with their families and reintegrate into their communities.

The mental health impacts on girl survivors included post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, as well as other severe physical and mental health outcomes.

Both children and caregivers noted that the services and programmes available did not meet the urgent and overwhelming needs of girls and boys who experienced sexual violence, those forcibly recruited by ISIS, or of children born in captivity.

Yazidi children told researchers that they wanted to learn but eight years on, they continue to be denied their right to education. For many Yazidi children, their closest schools sit empty, bombed, and destroyed and they fear travelling too far, while the lack of quality materials and textbooks and staffing shortages is also impeding their education.

“The fear of our sons and daughters going to distant schools because of the fear of kidnapping,” said female caregiver Souzan*.

Lack of civil documentation also hinders some Yazidi children from going to school. Many Yazidi children lost their identity documents during the genocide while younger children may not have been registered at birth. Without these documents, children cannot access basic services like education and health. Obtaining new documentation can be expensive and complex.

Children born in captivity face even greater challenges as proof of paternity is required in Iraq for registration by unmarried parents. Barring this, a child is registered as Muslim, rendering them both legally and culturally non-Yazidi, further stigmatizing them.

Rizgar Aljaff, Save the Children’s Acting Country Director for Iraq, said:

“Yazidi children continue to live in fear of what they and their families experienced at the hands of ISIS, and what they experience in their daily lives now. Their fundamental rights as children are still denied. The urgent care and support they need to help process their trauma and heal are still grossly lacking. Many children are still missing. If nothing changes, the impacts of the genocide on Yazidi children will only deepen.”

Save the Children is calling on the international community to work with the Government of Iraq and Kurdistan Regional Government to establish specialised services for Yazidi child survivors to reintegrate into their communities, invest in quality education and infrastructure in Yazidi communities, and ensure Yazidi child survivors of sexual violence and recruitment can re-enter the education system with mental health and psychosocial support.

They must also take steps to ensure Yazidi children receive justice, accountability, and reparations for the grave violations, crimes against humanity, and war crimes perpetrated against them.

The child rights organisation is also calling on the Government of Iraq to ensure all Yazidi children can secure civil documentation to access to basic needs and rights such as education and health and amend all relevant Iraqi laws to allow the mothers of children born of war to choose the religion of their children at registration.

Save the Children has been operating in Sinjar since 2017 to support returning families. We work alongside communities and in partnership with local groups to help people find work, rebuild community infrastructure and provide essential services, such as healthcare and legal advice.

https://www.savethechildren.net/news/ya ... r-genocide

[Anthea]

Khalida Shamo promotes gardening

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A displaced Yezidi woman has turned outside her family’s displaced tent into a garden and has from there started promoting the idea to the rest of the camp

The 28-years-old Khalida Shamo, who has been living in an internally displaced (IDP) camp in Duhok's Khanki since 2014, is originally from Sinjar.

The recent graduate of the Science of Psychology Department told Kurdistan 24 that she had started her efforts by planting a few flowers at first.

When we first arrived at the camp eight years ago, it was very hot in summer and the electricity was in a bad shape; the tents were covered with dust and there was no place for the family to sit outside and rest in the fresh air, Khalida said.

"It was then that I thought that we need to step up and change the environment, by surrounding the tents with green space," she said.

"I started in March of 2018 and have continued through the summer, planting and irrigating the flowers. It was a hard thing to do in a camp but I never gave up," Khalida added.

After that, each year she tried to expand the green space. From a few types of flowers, she has now around 29 sorts of flowers in her garden, some of which had been gifted to her by her sister living in Germany.

"Whenever I feel anxious inside the tent, I start tending the plants immediately, as the view and the smell helps me feel better," she said.

Other displaced people inside the camp saw how green space can make a difference even inside a camp.

Khalida did not stop there. People were inspired and started turning to her for help and advice in successfully planting flowers and other small vegetation.

Even NGOs noticed her efforts and helped the camp residents to get what they need in following Khalida’s footsteps in making small gardens.

"I ask all families to plant a tree or at least some flowers because that will create a positive vibe and make one psychologically more at peace," She said.

Khalida hopes that one day soon security situation improve in her hometown Sinjar, so they can return home where they can increase green space there once again.

Link to Article - Photos:

https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/29 ... Duhok-camp

[Anthea]

Yazidi genocide is ongoing

In-depth: Eight years after the genocide by the Islamic State, Yazidi survivors remain stranded in camps with little hope of returning to their homeland. With many emigrating in search of stability, the community faces an existential threat

In a ramshackle café, darkened by tarpaulins to keep out the hot August sun, a man is speaking on the phone with a smuggler who will help him and his family reach Germany. It has been eight years since he fled the Yazidi homeland in north-western Iraq for a displacement camp in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains.

Now Sameer, 32, echoes a common refrain in the camp: “In Iraq there is no hope, there is no future; we give up.”

The Yazidis here are the survivors of a genocide. In August 2014, the Islamic State (IS) group ripped through their towns and villages, systematically killing men and older boys and enslaving women and children. More than 10,000 people were kidnapped or murdered. At least 2,700 Yazidis remain missing to this day, either dead or still in IS captivity.

Virtually all who escaped were displaced – about 400,000 people. Eight years on, close to half of them are still living in 15 internally displaced persons (IDP) camps scattered across the plateaus and dry mountains of the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

With their homeland still in ruins and unsafe for return, pervasive hopelessness is driving emigration to Europe. Yazidi activists say emigration – and indefinite exile in camps – is effectively a slow continuation of the genocide to eradicate the Yazidi population in Iraq.

"Yazidi activists say emigration – and indefinite exile in camps – is effectively a slow continuation of the genocide to eradicate the Yazidi population in Iraq"

Khodeda Qolo Edo’s home is a white caravan with a front terrace sheltered by sturdy tarpaulins, typical of many homes in the Dawodia IDP camp. Morning glory vines travel up the sides and outside the sky is a brilliant blue.

“When someone like you comes to my house, I feel shy,” Edo, 42, told The New Arab, as his wife and children gathered around.

“When we lived in Sinjar, it was good for us economically. We had a house and were doing very well; in one hour, we left all this behind and came here.”

He said the family has given up hope of returning to their village in Sinjar, the Yazidi homeland: “It’s not safe…Maybe this war will happen again.”

Last year two of his cousins travelled into the EU through Belarus and Poland, a migration route that garnered intense political attention and was soon shut down. The family would like to leave as well, but they cannot afford to travel all at once and don’t want to split up; sometimes family reunification can take years.

Down the street, another family gathers under a tree and recounts how they fled the small town of Gerzehri in the middle of the night, leaving everything behind. Two relatives were killed.

“We have nothing in our minds to give hope,” said Jafer, 50, of their life now. “We only have routine.”

Some people in the camp work as day labourers on nearby farms, or in the army of the Kurdistan Regional Government, but wages are low. The family’s two sons study, but jobs matching qualifications are hard to come by.

Jafer’s 23-year-old son wants to travel to Europe. “Nothing is good in Iraq,” he said.

During the conflict with ISIS in Iraq between 2014 and 2017, over 6 million people were internally displaced. Most have since gone home, but not the Yazidis. The heartland of the small religious minority, Sinjar, has the lowest return rates in the country, with just 36% of the original population returning, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

A politically contested region, Sinjar remains unsafe and unstable. Infrastructure still lies in ruins, and resulting challenges in accessing running water, electricity, health care and education impede the ability of people to return and flourish. The IOM found that 99% of people who have moved back to the district live in areas where under half of the residents can find employment. In recent years, a rise in Turkish airstrikes against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and purportedly affiliated groups has slowed returns to a trickle.

Essian IDP camp sits among low rolling hills that in late August are parched, leaving only pale grasses and red dust. The streets are empty, the camp’s nearly 13,000 inhabitants remaining inside to avoid the worst of the heat, which by noon has climbed to 44 degrees Celsius. Eight years in, they still live in plastic tents.

A team of psychologists and support staff is setting up a new project centre in the camp. They’re repurposing two caravans abandoned by long-gone aid organisations. Stickers from the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, are plastered along the side of one; down the street, frayed USAID tarpaulins cover impromptu pens caging goats and chickens.

Lena Schmid, a psychologist and co-founder of the German organisation Hudara, which leads the programme together with Duhok-based NGO Rusaz, says displacement tends to exacerbate existing mental health conditions and can contribute to new ones, such as depression and anxiety-related disorders. Nearly everyone experiences chronically elevated levels of psychosocial stress.

"Like other minority religious groups in Iraq, the emigration of the ancient Yazidi community poses an existential threat"

“The lack of future prospects, loss of social structures and communities, and missing people with fading hope of seeing their loved ones again, combined with increasing poverty and unemployment have far-reaching effects on health and well-being,” said Schmid.

For those who can afford it, and who succeed, emigration promises a way out.

This summer has seen a surge in Yazidis travelling through Turkey and into Greece.

About 4,300 left Iraq in one month between August and September, according to the Alind Organization for Youth Democratisation, which bases its data on information from transport offices, people smugglers, and organisations working in camps.

The organisation, based in Duhok, Kurdistan region of Iraq, carries out a regular survey among displaced Yazidis, and has noticed a growing share wanting to leave the country. 83% indicated they wanted to emigrate during the latest round.

Sherzad Permosa, Alind’s director, explained that just the day before speaking with The New Arab he received news of 250 Yazidis travelling by bus into Turkey. Kurdish media airs footage of packed passport application offices, and young Yazidi men and families boarding outbound buses.

Earlier this month, 120 Yazidis were stranded outside a camp in northern Greece which had reached capacity, according to media reports.

The emigration of young men raises additional concerns for the community in Iraq due to rules which not only prohibit marriage outside of the Yazidi religion, but also restrict it to within particular “castes” or groups.

“Because most of the emigrants are males, the young women may struggle to marry,” said Permosa.

Like other minority religious groups in Iraq, the emigration of the ancient Yazidi community poses an existential threat. The most sacred site of the religion, Lalish, is tucked in the hills near Duhok; Yazidis have been worshipping here for over 4,000 years.

Perwin Thasenmho, 16, her parents and sisters at their home in an IDP camp. Perwin’s aunt remarked: “We are sad that the young people leave the camp and go to Europe. I don’t like it because the Yazidis will be few, and the boys will be few and there will not be enough for the girls to marry!” [TNA/Tara Brian]

While smaller numbers of Yazidis live in Syria, the Caucasus, and more recent diaspora communities in Europe and North America, Iraq is the heartland of the religion.

Since 2014, as many as half of the pre-genocide Yazidi population of Iraq has emigrated, according to some estimates. However, no official figures exist.

“This is the worst thing, that the Yazidi people leave Yazidi places because this is exactly what Daesh [IS] wanted,” said Zemfira Dlovani, Chairwomen of the Central Council of Yazidis in Germany, the country with the largest Yazidi population outside Iraq. “It’s nothing else but the fulfilment of the genocide, in the end.”

The Council is working to build political support in Iraq and in Germany towards rebuilding and stabilising Sinjar so people can move home. A strong Yazidi civil society movement in Iraq and Germany has been active in fighting for reconstruction, justice and reparations for survivors of IS crimes, but political deadlock over Sinjar remains.

"'I remember my grandfather used to say, ‘things will be ok, just wait.’ I used to say this to my sons too. But it’s not ok anymore'"

“It’s quite unfortunate that the Yazidis, which are our neighbours…they will become very few in Iraq just like us,” said Wansa Shamoon, from the Jiyan Foundation for Human Rights in Duhok, which promotes the mental well-being, physical rehabilitation, and social reintegration of survivors and their families.

She herself is a Christian whose family also fled IS in 2014. Not only IS, but recurrent violence and pervasive discrimination have pushed a dramatic emigration of Christians out of Iraq in the past two decades.

The decline of both the Christian and Yazidi communities follows a pattern of minority expulsion. In the 1940s and 50s nearly all Iraq’s Jewish population left the country.

“My grandmother was always saying: ‘the Jewish told us when they left Iraq, Sunday is just after Saturday,’” Shamoon recounts.

She believes the Christians and Yazidis share a mutual story in many ways, both enduring repeated genocides over the generations, both ancient religions born in the region and faced with losing their roots.

“[Iraq] is their country, it’s their soul, it’s everything culturally, emotionally connected to them, but they have to choose between having safety without home, or living in your home while it’s not safe.”

I can feel them,” she said, about the choice to stay or go. “I also have not decided yet.”

For Sameer, the Yazidi father in the IDP camp, the decision has been made: “I remember my grandfather used to say, ‘things will be ok, just wait.’ I used to say this to my sons too. But it’s not ok anymore.”

Tara Brian is a freelance journalist. She previously worked as a researcher with the United Nations' migration agency.

Follow her on Twitter: @trbrian11

https://english.alaraby.co.uk/analysis/iraqs-displaced-yazidis-genocide-ongoing

[Anthea]

PKK prison' at Mount Sinjar

The Iraqi military managed to locate a secret detention centre belonging to the PKK in the country's north, but failed to reach it, according to reports

Thousands of PKK militants operate in northern Iraq along the Turkish border

A secret prison run by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq has been discovered by the Iraqi military, according to a Kurdish news website.

"Iraqi army intelligence was able to uncover one of the prisons and secret detention centres of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in the Gelmiran area of ​​Mount Sinjar, but it was not able to go to the prison site," reported Darka Mazi, close to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq.

It said PKK militants prevented the soldiers from reaching the site, with clashes nearly breaking out between the two sides.

Darka Mazi published a video on its website showing a verbal standoff between Iraqi and PKK personnel.

The PKK is accused of operating secret prisons in Sinjar, the site of the 2014 Yazidi genocide where thousands of men and women were killed and kidnapped by the Islamic State group.

This is despite repeated announcements by the Iraqi government that it is in full control of the area.

Ismail Sinjari from the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party said the PKK runs more than one prison in their areas of "influence" or control in Nineveh, but downplayed any serious action taken by the central Iraqi government to shut them down.

"The PKK is working according to dangerous schemes that have negative effects on the security of northern Iraq. Their presence poses a grave danger to the security of the country and the region," he told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, The New Arab’s sister site.

Turkey regularly carries out airstrikes and other military efforts in neighbouring Iraq as part of its offensive against PKK militants based there, who are believed to number in the thousands.

It is regarded as a terrorist group by Turkey, the US, and the European Union.

Turkish strikes on northern Iraq - one of which mistakenly killed at least nine tourists and injured 20 in July - and their advancement into Iraqi territory has crippled ties between Ankara and Baghdad.

Are YOU there?
YOU know who I mean

[Anthea]

Yazidi girl rescued from al-Hol camp

Security forces in northeast Syria (Rojava) rescued a Yazidi girl from the notorious al-Hol camp which houses Islamic State (ISIS) suspects, local media reported a month after two other Yazidi women were rescued from the facility

A 15-year-old Yazidi girl was rescued by security forces in the camp, Hawar News Agency (ANHA) cited a Yazidi official as saying, adding that the camp’s administration has confirmed the girl’s rescuing.

The girl is from the village of Solagh in the ethnoreligious community’s heartland of Shingal across the Iraqi border.

North Press Agency (NPA) also confirmed the rescuing, saying the girl was kidnapped by ISIS when she was ten years old in 2014 during their brazen offensive across swathes of northern Iraq, when the terror group seized Shingal and inflicted countless atrocities on the Yazidi minority.

In September, the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) rescued two Yazidi women from al-Hol camp during a weeks-long operation targeting ISIS cells in the squalid facility that saw the arrests of 226 suspects, including 36 women, as well as the confiscation of various weapons and the dismantling of tents used by ISIS cells as courts and torture centers.

ISIS overran the Yazidi heartland of Shingal during their conquest of parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014, committing genocide against the ethnoreligious group. More than 6 thousand Yazidis were abducted and thousands remain missing with little done to bring solace to the rescued.

The majority of captives are held in the notorious al-Hol camp, according to data obtained by Rudaw English from Khayri Bozani, former head of the Yazidi affairs at the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) endowment ministry.

Al-Hol camp is located in Hasaka province and has infamously been branded a breeding ground for terrorism, with authorities describing the sprawling camp as a “ticking time bomb,” saying the situation in the camp is “very dangerous.”

The facility is home to around 56,000 people – mostly women and children of different nationalities that have links to ISIS and were taken to the camp after the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) overran the terror group’s last stronghold in Syria in 2019.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/01102022

[Anthea]

Murderer of father and daughter

A court in Duhok on Wednesday sentenced the suspect in the killing of a Yazidi man and his six-year-old daughter to death following a relatively swift hearing session during which the defendant admitted to the murders

An internally displaced Yazidi man by the name of Faruq Mirza and his daughter Akheen were pronounced missing after leaving their residence in Zakho’s Cham Mshko camp in early August. Their bodies were found days later buried in a nearby farm.

Duhok police announced the arrest of the suspect over a week later.

The first hearing session was conducted on Wednesday, with a verdict resulting in a death sentence being issued less than two hours later. The suspect reportedly admitted to killing both Faruq and Akheen in the court, adding that he regrets killing the daughter but not the father.

“My heart is a bit relieved… If they had given him [suspect] to me so I can hang him and tear him to pieces, I would have been more relieved,” Seve, Akheen’s mother, told Rudaw’s Ayub Nasri before the court.

The suspect claimed during his testimony that he and Faruq had gotten into a heated argument in the farm, prompting him to kill the Yazidi man and later Akheen as she kept crying.

“No matter what they do and what they do to him [suspect] we will never find solace, as whenever we say “Akheen” we are reminded of the pain in our hearts,” cried Akheen’s aunt.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/05102022

[Anthea]

Click image to enlarge:


Yazidis celebrate Jama holiday

Hundreds of Yazidis from around the world, many of whom were forced out of their ancestral land during the Islamic State (ISIS) attack on Shingal in 2014, have gathered in the southeastern Turkish province of Sirnak to celebrate Jama holiday, performing traditional dances and religious rituals as they wish for a safe return to their home and reunion with their loved ones

Yazidis from across the globe head towards the holy Lalish Temple to participate in religious rituals and ceremonies during Jama, a holiday marked by the religious minority every year in early October.

2022 marks the first year where followers of the religion have been able to gather in Lalish for Jama since the coronavirus outbreak, yet for some a return to the holy temple is still not an option at the moment.

“I am from Shingal, and now I live in Midyat. I have been living here for the past 4-5 years [after the ISIS attack]… I hope the situation in our country gets better and we can leave here and go back [to Shingal],” one of the attendees of the festivities told Rudaw's Abdulsalam Akinci on Friday, “We miss Shingal… we want to live in a country where we can find solace.”

Ismael is originally from Sirnak’s Kiwakh but has lived abroad for the past 43 years due to the poor conditions facing the Yazidi community in the area. He expressed his wishes to one day return to the land of his ancestors.

“I hope we can return to Kiwakh. Our ancestors have lived here for over 500 years. I hope peace prevails and all the components, Assyrians, Jews, Muslims, Yazidis, can live together… There are many obstacles. The villages are destroyed. Nobody lives in Kiwakh anymore and it must be rebuilt,” Ismael said.

Yazidi followers celebrate Jama for seven consecutive days.

Top officials of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq on Thursday congratulated Yazidis on the occasion of the holiday, reiterating their support for the swift rehabilitation of Yazidi areas and institutions, and wishes for overcoming the challenges facing the community.

Among the most irredeemably grotesque acts of the Islamic State (ISIS) was its attack upon the Yazidi homeland of Shingal, northern Iraq, on August 3, 2014, setting into motion the killing of thousands, and capture of thousands more, as it fractured the religious minority’s community.

For almost eight years, the Kurdistan Region has been home to tens of thousands of displaced Yazidis, many of whom exist below the poverty line despite warm words.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeas ... y/07102022

[Anthea]

Shengal calls iraq stop Turkish attacks

The Yazidi people who survived the ISIS genocide in their ancient hometown Shengal (Sinjar) in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, have been targeted by Turkey's attacks since they built their autonomous administration and defense forces

As part of its never-ending attacks on the Yazidi settlement Shengal (Sinjar) in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq), the Turkish state bombed the Serdesht Camp and surroundings at around 20:15 local time yesterday evening. The camp struck by armed drones houses members of the ancient Yazidi community who survived the ISIS genocide in August 2014.

The Democratic Autonomous Assembly of Shengal released a statement about the increasingly ongoing attacks by the Turkish state, calling on the Iraqi government to stop attacks and protect the country’s sovereignty as per its responsibilities.

The statement was made by Heci Hecem, co-chair of the Digur People’s Assembly, who condemned the Turkish attacks on Western Kurdistan (Rojava Kurdistani), Shengal and other parts of Southern Kurdistan, stating, “We, people of Shengal, were not recognised and protected by Iraq despite the fact that we are a part of the Iraqi state.

Turkey is currently attacking every inch of Iraqi soil, targeting the civilian population and violating Iraqi sovereignty. We call upon the authorities in Iraq to uphold their responsibilities and prevent these attacks.”

Recalling the genocide experienced by the Yazidi people before the very eyes of the world, Heci Hecem continued, “Nobody stood with us back then. And now, we are targeted by the attacks of the occupying Turkish state. These attacks must finally be prevented. As the Yazidi community and residents of Shengal, we organised ourselves and built our defense forces. We will not give up on our cause and we will keep our struggle going to the very end on this basis.”

[Anthea]

Please click photo to enlarge:


Yazidis seek help in Cyprus

According to an activist who works with the Yazidi minority and genocide survivors, a total of eight families arrived in Cyprus several weeks ago

Genocide and persecution of Yazidis

Yazidis are a religious minority that mostly resides in Iraq, but some have historically lived in areas that became Syria and Turkey as well. In recent years they have suffered brutal persecution by terrorists and extremist groups. ISIS committed genocide against Yazidis in Sinjar in northern Iraq, killing and kidnapping thousands.

Since the genocide in 2014 many hundreds of thousands of Yazidis have been forced into displaced persons camps. This caused many to seek better lives elsewhere, traveling through Turkey to Europe.

As members of a minority group that has been persecuted by Islamist extremists, they often face persecution along the journey, sometimes at the hands of other people who claim to be refugees. According to the source, dozens of Yazidis continue to migrate through Greece to the rest of Europe. It is not usual that they end up in Cyprus because the journey is more complex and dangerous.

Landing in Cyprus

However, recently several families ended up in Cyprus near Nicosia. One is a mother with two children, and her other children and husband were still stranded in Turkey.

According to a source, many Yazidis feel they have no hope and they are continuing to leave Iraq for other destinations. They are forced to travel a difficult distance through Turkey and face persecution along the way. With winter coming it is expected that Yazidis will face more troubles. The source who keeps in touch with Yazidis who are trying to flee or seek refugee camps has documented some who went missing making the journey.

Unfortunately, despite the focus on the genocide of Yazidis, there has not been a concerted effort by the international community to help survivors. That means that there isn’t much help for those who are still stuck in refugee camps or helping them get asylum status in the West. There is also no real support for them to return home in security in Sinjar; or to make their lives elsewhere. For this reason many try to leave and some have no ended up in Cyprus.

One of those stuck in Cyprus said she had very little to eat for days and they are in difficult circumstances. Some of these people have tried many times to flee to Europe. They have ended up in Cyprus because the borders to Greece are more difficult to cross.

Many find themselves in an impossible situation; unable to go home to Sinjar in Iraq, living in camps where they still live in simple tents which are cold in winter and often suffer from fire hazards; in Turkey, they face persecution and must hide their identity; and then on the way to Europe they have to cross numerous countries.

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-719238