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Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

A place for discussion and exchanging ideas about Kurdistan issues here, also a place for sharing article & views and analysis about Kurdistan .

Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

PostAuthor: Anthea » Mon Jun 12, 2017 11:51 am

Kurdish-Ezedi people building up ruined sacred buildings

"Let ISIL see that we won't die"

phpBB [video]


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https://youtu.be/vXbEFJc5W64
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Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

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Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

PostAuthor: Anthea » Wed Jun 14, 2017 11:36 pm

Report on ISIS massacre against Êzidîs

Êzidîs Foundation released a summary report about what happened to Êzidîs in the wake of the ISIS onslaught and massacre in Shengal region in August, 2014.

Êzidîs Foundation released a summary report about what happened to Êzidîs in the wake of the ISIS onslaught and massacre in Shengal region in August, 2014.

The summary report by the Êzidîs Foundation, revealing the extent of the tragedy, is as follows;

“On August 3, 2014 ISIS attacked Shengal city and all the villages of Shengal driving modern trucks, military vehicles, and armed with advanced weapons.

At the beginning, the people with arms resisted ISIS for more than three hours, but unfortunately the inequality between them and ISIS, who were equipped with advanced weapons, led to ISIS control over whole Shengal city and its villages with support from the Arabic people in the region. X(

Outcry of children and women was overload as massacres were taking place in Shengal and its villages, with ISIS gangs shooting everywhere and everyone, whether they resisted or not, and those trying to escape. In this tragic scene, ISIS controlled over all Shengal and the Nineveh plain.

Below are some statistics showing the extent of the tragedy:

In the same day, 1293 unarmed people were killed and more than 6417 were captured, including 3547 females and 2870 males.

Women were sold in slave markets in Mosul, Tal Afar, Al-Rigga and Deir Al-Zour.

340,000 people were displaced from Sinjar and 60,000 from Bashiqa, Bahzani and other areas in the Southern Kurdistan region, some of them fled to Turkey and Syria.

ISIS also blew up 68 religious temples, and Arab residents neighboring the Shengal city spoiled Êzidî villages under supervision of Arabic sheikh and support and protection of ISIS.

Out of the 6417 people captured, 3019 could be rescued; who include 1084 women, 334 men, 808 girls and 793 boys.

A total of 3398 people are still in ISIS captivity and these include 1655 women and 1743 men.

According to the sources, there are about 1600 kids who ISIS took to special training camp for suicide attacks and mission.

The number of orphan children resulting from ISIS invasion reached 2745.

Also, 43 mass graves have been discovered so far, with an estimated 35 victims in each.

In addition, hundreds of people got wounded , disabled and thousands are suffering psychological trauma due to what they experienced or witnessed at the hands of ISIS.

The infrastructure of the Shengal area was also destroyed and most of the houses were taken apart. Besides, many other houses were spoiled by Arab neighbors.

MIGRATION

As an inevitable result of the continued crimes against Êzidîs about 90,000 have migrated abroad seeking asylum in European countries. There are still thousands of Êzidîs on the border in Turkey, Greece and elsewhere who want to be refugee in one of the European countries, suffering from difficult living.

KOCHO VILLAGE MASSACRE

On August 3, 2014. ISIS invaded the Kocho village in Shengal and asked the families to stay at home, promising to protect them and leave them in peace in their homes.

ISIS then sent some of his fighters to Ahmed Jasoo, who was Koch sheikh, and asked them to convert to Islam. The people in Kocho refused that, while ISIS gave them time until August 15 to do that, but they refused again to convert to Islam.

In the early morning of August 15, 2014 when the time ISIS gave to convert to Islam ended, ISIS entered the village, they took all the people to school yard in middle of the village, and confiscated people's all belongings including gold, jewelry, money, mobile phones and cars.

ISIS then took the men to out of Kocho village and more than 400 men were executed, according to eyewitnesses who survived that massacre that was perpetrated in nearby valleys on both sides of the village.

Hours later, women and children were moved to various locations in order to disperse them and break them away their families so that they would continue to be in a state of fear and terror.

The number of families who was in Koch village was 300 at the time of ISIS invasion and the number of inhabitants was 1738. There were 1200 people physically present in the village during the ISIS attack.

According to figures, 459 people were killed in Kocho village on August 15, 2014, who include 388 men and 71 women.

While 727 girls and women were enslaved, the number of orphan children reached 42. No one survived the massacre from 63 families.

Only one person survived from 47 families and two persons from 17 others. 25 families survived with all their members and one person was killed or captured from 146 families.

Also, 17 people survived the massacre. 544 inhabitants were not in the at village when ISIS attacked.

SITUATION OF DISPLACED ÊZIDÎS

400.000 people were displaced from Shengal, Bashiqa and Bahzani and these were resettled in camps, incomplete buildings and even in village streets inside and outside of the Southern Kurdistan region.

Due to the enormous number of displaced people and lack of cooperation between the Southern Kurdistan government and the central government in Baghdad which refused to offer help, the resulting lack of aid led to many problems, mainly in the camps. This caused additional suffering to the displaced people; emergence of diseases, especially dermatology, among children due to the negligence and non-lifting and destruction of waste and tailings in the camps.

Most of roads leading to camps are unpaved, also most of roads inside the camps are unpaved, which cause feeling of uncomfortably and unsafety, in addition to the accumulation of dust and dirt on the food of the families and shops inside camps.

Electricity is cut off for many hours in most camps, water supply is contaminated and unsuitable for drinking, and there are many cases of poisoning and diarrhea among children, and many people are suffering from lack of food.

Schools in camps are not enough for students due to lack of teaching staff, and financial situation of families in camps is very poor because of the high unemployment rate.

There are many insects in camps due to the lack of water and showers especially lice and scabies which cause many diseases among children.

Also there are few medical staff in camps and a remarkable lack in especially emergency situation and health center in camps lack medication and physicians.

In some camps the number of restrooms is not enough and a lot of people share it which leads to problems. In addition some families consist of 8-9 members and they have only one tent which enough only for sitting, also some areas are too bad to live in.

Registered suicides cases reached 28 until March 2017 due to the psychological pressure and living situations.

LATEST SITUATION

Displaced Êzidîs are still in a very bad situation, hundred thousands of them live in camps, thousands of them need rehabilitation to normal social life, thousands of survivors are in need of rehabilitation and lack daily life needs. :((

Hundreds of orphan children receive no support and hundreds of elderly people lack the simplest living needs, while thousands of sick people and disabled persons need medication in camps. Dozens of people are waiting for surgical operation and they do not have money for physical check. :((

In addition to the thousands of girls and women who are still held captive by ISIS, several children are trained for terrorist operations.” :((

Êzidîs Foundation stated that they hope international community and humanitarian organizations will offer help to come up with a solution to the mentioned problems suffered by the Êzidî community after the ISIS onslaught and massacre :((
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Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

PostAuthor: Anthea » Thu Jun 15, 2017 7:46 am

Revenge for Sinjar: Syrian Kurds free Islamic State slaves

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Islamic State militants enslaved Noura Khalaf for three years, dragging her from her small Iraqi village across their territory in Syria. They bought and sold her five times before she was finally freed with her children last week.

Khalaf is one of many Yazidi women that Kurdish fighters in northern Syria have set out to free from Islamic State in covert operations, a female Kurdish militia commander told Reuters.

They have dubbed the operation "revenge for the women of Sinjar", the homeland of Iraq's ancient Yazidi minority which Islamic State overran in the summer of 2014.

The militants slaughtered, enslaved and raped thousands of people when they rampaged through northern Iraq, purging its Yazidi community. They abducted Yazidi women as sex slaves and gunned down male relatives, witnesses and Iraqi officials say. Nearly 3,000 women are believed to be still in captivity.

Nisreen Abdallah, a commander in the YPJ militia, said around 200 women and children from northern Iraq have been freed in various parts of Syria so far.

The Kurdish YPG militia and its all-female YPJ brigade rescued them in what she described as covert operations into IS territory that began last year. Abdallah declined to divulge more details for security reasons.

The Syrian militias launched this mission as part of their U.S.-backed offensive on Raqqa, Islamic State's base of operations in Syria, she said.

With the YPG at its forefront, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias began pushing into Raqqa last week, after advancing on the city since November.

"Since then, we have been working to liberate the Yazidi women held captive by Daesh," Abdallah said. In the case of Khalaf, she said Kurdish fighters made contact with her and drew up "an appropriate plan" to free her unharmed.

CODE WORD

Noura Khalaf said she had been living with her children as the slave of an Islamic State militant in Syria's Hama province for a year, when an unidentified man smuggled them out in the YPG-coordinated operation.

The plan took shape thanks to IS rules forbidding fighters from taking mobile phones to the frontlines, she said. The jihadist holding Khalaf left his at home, allowing her to call her brother who in turn asked the YPG for help.

"Abu Amir used to leave his phone at home when he went to the frontline," said 24-year-old Khalaf. "I had memorized my brother's number."

Khalaf was eventually told to await contact from a man who would come to rescue her. He uttered a pre-agreed code word, so she would know it was safe to leave with him.

"I'm happy to be staying here," she said, speaking to Reuters in the Syrian city of Qamishli in the Kurdish-controlled northeast. She will soon return to the Sinjar mountain region. "After I rest here, I will go meet my brother," she said.

After Islamic State kidnapped Khalaf with her four children in 2014, they bussed her around northern Iraq, including Mosul, along with dozens of women from her hometown of Kojo in Sinjar. "I still don't know what happened to my husband," she said.

At one point in her captivity, militants kept her in an underground jail in Raqqa, she said, and at another, they held her in a prison in Palmyra.

"They took us to an underground market for selling women, where they displayed us for Islamic State members and each one picks the girl he likes," she said. Fighters forced her to serve and cook for them, some beating and raping her repeatedly.

Now, Khalaf and her children are staying at a shelter run by the women's council of the Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria.

Abdallah, the YPJ commander, said they deliver the women to their relatives in northern Iraq by coordinating with a Yazidi committee around Sinjar.

Two months earlier, Kurdish fighters also rescued Khalaf's seven-year-old daughter, who had been sold off near Raqqa, and sent her to relatives in Sinjar, she said.

"We will also send Noura, through the women's council. So she will see her daughter again," Abdallah said.

"Those who are freed have been away from their relatives, living among Daesh for years...in alienation and degradation," Abdallah said. "They have psychological complexes and they need care."

The beliefs of the Yazidi community, which Islamic State regards as devil-worship, combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions. Mass Yazidi graves have been found since U.S.-backed Iraqi forces seized Sinjar in 2015.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mide ... SKBN1950M2
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Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

PostAuthor: Anthea » Thu Jun 15, 2017 7:53 am

ISIS used Mosul church to abuse Yazidi girls, women, Iraqi Army officer says

In the basement of an decimated church in eastern Mosul, rubble and debris tell a gut-wrenching story of ISIS' depravity towards Yazidi women and girls. On the floor of the iconic house of worship lie tiny pieces of pink and yellow underwear and flower headbands belonging to the very young Yazidi sex slaves the barbaric terrorist group took captive.

Iraqi officials tell Fox News that at least 200 Yazidi girls and women were imprisoned in the historic Syrian Orthodox Church of St. Ephraim, one of the region’s largest Christian sites, which was freed by Iraqi forces several months ago.

“We found documents where they questioned them about their age, whether married or single, virgin or not, period or not,” Iraqi Forces 1st Lt. Waseem Nenwaya, told Fox News.

In addition, he noted, ISIS used the church to store documents from their various departments of the terror group.

In June 2015, a year after ISIS overran Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul and much of its surrounding Nineveh Plains region, the group used street notices to announce it was converting that church into a “mosque of the mujahedeen.” Subsequently, the cross from the dome was ripped down and all furniture in the house of worship was stripped of furniture and Christian symbols.

Instead, the church was cloaked with the black-and-white ISIS flag that declares in Arabic, “There is no God but Allah” and the graffiti-littered walls with their ominous motto “remaining.”

But despite being a bombed-out shell of what it once was and the chilling reminders in the rubble of ISIS abuse, locals are determined to restore and return St. Ephraim to the endangered Iraqi Christian community. Nenwaya said that the country’s Christian Affairs Department, in conjunction with several humanitarian-focused nongovernmental organizations from France and Italy have also pledged to assist with repairs.

“It was used as a mortar attack point,” he continued wistfully. “They caved the church walls.”

The butchered Christian building and its Yazidi remnants serve as chilling reminders of the genocide experienced by the two religious minorities. While U.S.-led airstrikes continue and Iraqi forces seize more and more pockets of ISIS territory, the war against Islamic terrorists like ISIS is far from over. Hundreds of thousands of Christians and Yazidis remain displaced across the country, with an inability or innate fear of returning home.

In early August 2014 ISIS assaulted the Yazidi’s ancestral home of Sinjar – slaughtering and enslaving thousands 10,000. More than 6,500 were kidnapped to become either forced jihadists or sex slaves. Over the course of ISIS’ reign, thousands managed to escape or were murdered at the hands of their captors.

But around 2,000 remain unaccounted for and only a relatively small number have managed to emerge from the basements of Mosul in recent months, even as ISIS numbers are fast shrinking.

“Some locals have come forward and delivered girls, whom they were protecting, to the troops,” Nenwaya acknowledged. “But there are not many left.”

Last week, according to local activists, ISIS publicly caged and burned alive 19 Yazidi girls for refusing to have sex with ISIS fighters, according to local activists. Yazidi leaders last year showed Fox News photographs of the Islamic jihadists burning babies to death on a slab of sheet metal, photos that show tiny, roasted bodies side by side as flames engulfed them.

For most Yazidis awaiting the return of loved ones, the silence has been deafening. However, Nenwaya stressed that they have a “clear order” from top brass above to prioritize the search for Yazidi hostages, and they have some information from locals on existing locations the girls are being held. Over the weekend, Iraq’s Ministry of Defense stated that another Yazidi lockup was located in the western Mosul region of Qairawan, as clearing operations continued.

It is also believed that some Yazidi slaves – those who have managed to stay alive this long – have in recent months been transferred to the terrorist group’s so-called “caliphate capital” of Raqqa in Syria. Raqqa, too, is currently being pummeled by coalition forces and with the support of Kurdish ground troops, and every day is getting closer to falling out of ISIS control.

But with liberation also comes the discovery of more and more Yazidi mass graves.

“We haven’t opened [the latest mass grave discovered] it yet,” one Yazidi soldier, pointing to a section of cornered off dirt along an abandoned road strip. “They were just people trying to run away.”

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/06/12 ... -says.html
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Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

PostAuthor: Anthea » Wed Jun 21, 2017 9:06 am

The Yazidis Of Iraq Are Disappearing From The Country :((
By Mark Chamoun

It has now been a year since a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry determined that ISIS' violence against the Yazidis constitutes a case of genocide, defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.

The Yazidis of Iraq, like many other minorities in the region, are disappearing from the country. At the very least 2,500 Yazidis have died directly at the hand of ISIS. With countless others being kidnapped and raped it is not hard to see why the minority group is slowly vanishing. Tragically, the group is quickly leaving its native country of Iraq with 90,000 immigrating to safer countries.

Indeed, the original Yazidi population in 2014 of 550,000 has all but dwindled in the face of ongoing persecution and searches for safe havens. The Yazidis have faced persecution in the past, mostly due to their religious practices, with many accusing the group of worshipping the devil.

In fact, the group has faced significant persecution up until recent history with abusers such as the Ottoman Turks perpetuating massacres. But with the rise of ISIS in the region, tolerance for the Yazidi minority of Iraq has diminished to such a low that survival of the people in Iraq is uncertain.

The flight of the Yazidis

The Yazidis in their flight from persecution have faced tremendous hardships perhaps identical to a life lived under ISIS occupation. Those displaced from their homes have faced adversities such as homelessness, lack of food security, trauma, increased infant mortality, unemployment, and illness. These difficulties come sadly just in an effort to escape ISIS itself. To live under the occupation of ISIS is such a fear for those that are susceptible to persecution, that the taking on of these hardships becomes a preferred choice.

The reality is however, that without definite means of survival in their displacement; life outside their homes becomes extremely difficult and refuge in the form of migration, arduous. Undeniably with the current refugee crisis creating such divisive discourse between those "pro" and "anti" to the predicament, the Yazidis like many other minorities fleeing crisis in the region become voiceless in their own exodus.

The fight for the Yazidis

The plight of the Yazidis alongside other minorities in the region has been acknowledged as a case of genocide by both the United States and the United Nations. The extent of what this recognition represents in pragmatic means has not been fully established, however. Certainly, individuals such as human rights lawyer Amal Clooney have begun advocating and preparing a case for prosecution in the International Criminal Court alongside Yazidi activists like Nadia Murad.

Groups such as the Yazda: Global Yazidi Organization has also emerged, largely in an effort to protect and ensure the safety of Yazidis both in Iraq and in the diaspora. Efforts to help the Yazidis in their current persecution are still largely new nevertheless, but with increased attention being given to the minority; Yazidi subsistence in Iraq looks feasible.

But without attention being given, one cannot be certain of the Yazidi case. The extent of their advocacy reaches only as far as the support of the international community goes. In the words of Yazidi activist Nadia Murad: "It is time for this tragedy to stop, and it is time for the world to see our wounds." Indeed, it must be the international community that stops the Yazidi tragedy. But for it to do that the world must open its eyes and realize the plight of the Yazidi people. A plight that can easily be diminished by the work of the world as a whole.

http://www.aina.org/news/20170619122354.htm
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Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

PostAuthor: Anthea » Wed Jun 21, 2017 9:14 am

From the Sinjar mountains to Germany's Rhineland:
[size=15\40]a Yazidi refugee's story[/size]

The Yazidis are a religious minority in northern Iraq whose people have been persecuted by the "Islamic State." One Yazidi who fled Iraq and sought refuge in Germany shared his story with InfoMigrants.

Image

"I come from Sinjar, Iraq, but had to leave in August 2014. This was exactly when the 'Islamic State' started to take control of my city. They killed many people and kidnapped about 5000 of our girls," 23-year old Sherwan told InfoMigrants.

Sinjar is located near a mountain range with the same name in Northern Iraq. In August 2014, the "Islamic State" or "IS" began to expand into Iraq from neighboring Syria. The terrorist organization eventually reached the town of Sinjar, where they began killing hundreds of Yazidis. 50,000 of them fled into the mountains where they were surrounded on all sides by "IS"- facing starvation and dehydration due to the siege. Sherwan and his family were trapped there for eight days.

This prompted an international humanitarian outcry. Countries like the U.S., U.K. and France began to drop food and water to those Yazidis trapped in the mountains. On August 7, U.S. President Barack Obama announced the U.S. would conduct air strikes on "IS" forces in the area.

Decision to leave

Kurdish militias set up humanitarian corridors that enabled 35,000 Yazidis to escape, so Sherwan and his family fled to Syria. Sherwan's brother eventually joined the Kurdish Peshmerga forces to fight "IS," hoping to bring back some of the Yazidi girls that had been kidnapped. He lost his life fighting "IS" some months later. Sherwan and his family eventually returned to the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq in Spring 2015.

In December 2015, Sherwan and his two younger sisters then decided to leave for Turkey from Northern Iraq, hoping to eventually get asylum in Europe. "We went on a small boat to Greece from Turkey where we proceeded through the Balkan countries, Austria and eventually reached Germany. The NGOs helped us a lot. An Israeli medical clinic provided treatment for my sister when she was feeling sick on the way," he continued.

Later that December, they reached the Western German city of Cologne. They stayed in a sports hall with other refugees while their asylum applications were being processed. "There were many of us in a small room and the food was not good. The security personnel were not friendly to us. I was very active in trying to find an apartment for me and my sisters."

Thoughts on life in Germany

Sherwan found the asylum process to be rather long. The German Office of Migration and Refugees (BAMF in German) tried to make sure that him and his sisters were really Yazidis. Sometimes Kurdish asylum seekers will say they are Yazidi even though they are not because they believe there will be a higher chance of getting asylum. In December 2016, he and his two sisters finally were granted asylum.

When asked about what he thinks about life in Germany, he says that for his sisters it is harder since they are younger and more connected to their home country. "I don't have a country - I consider Germany to be my country. I will try my best to serve this country because I'm thankful to be here and happy to be with my sisters. My dream is to one day have a PhD in Chemistry," he said. For now, he is just trying to learn the German language as best as he can.

Although he has made many German friends, he says there has been some stigma toward refugees due to recent events such as New Year's Eve 2015, when women were harrassed by men of North African origin at Cologne's Central Station. He recalls one time meeting some Germans and one of the women refusing to shake hands with him due to him being refugee. He hopes that not all refugees will be stereotyped due to the actions of a few.

"I just want to say to Germans that not all refugees are bad," he finished.


http://www.dw.com/en/from-the-sinjar-mo ... a-39313096
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Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

PostAuthor: Anthea » Thu Jun 22, 2017 9:01 pm

Turkey’s Waiting Game in Sinjar

Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) discusses the imperative and difficulty of Turkey’s pushback against Kurdish and Iranian-backed militant groups in the Sinjar district of Iraq.

Image

The battle to dominate the district of Sinjar, 100 kilometers west of Mosul, has been approaching like a sandstorm on the horizon. This is because Sinjar, the scene of Yezidi genocide[1] since 2014, is undergoing a multi-faceted struggle for power between the various factions fighting the Islamic State (IS). These groups include the Iraqi Kurds, the Iraqi government, Iranian-backed elements of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Syrian-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), and numerous Yezidi factions aligned with the different players.

Background on Sinjar

Situated on the Iraqi-Syrian border, Sinjar is the last Iraqi city on Highway 47, the trade road between Mosul and Syria. The Yezidis and Kurds of the district were brutalized by the Baʿthist government in the 1970s and 1980s, with rural populations displaced into dismal collective villages called mujamma. After Saddam’s fall, the majority of Yezidis continued to live in the mujamma, which by that point had grown into towns and fallen under the political dominance and security aegis of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the dominant Kurdish force in the northern part of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The rural areas of Sinjar were policed by the (mainly Yezidi) 3rd Iraqi Army division.

The Iraqi Army disintegrated when the Islamic State attacked in June 2014, and then two months later, the KDP Peshmerga also fled as the Islamic State’s war spread into the Kurdistan Region. The Yezidis formed the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBŞ), which received support from the PKK armed wing and the neighbouring Syrian Kurdish YPG, an affiliate of the PKK. These forces sustained a safe haven for Yezidi civilians on Sinjar Mountain, a forty-kilometer-long anticline towering nearly 700 meters above the surrounding plains. Another Yezidi militia called the Protection Force of Êzidkhan (HPE) operated at a slight remove from the PKK and eventually fell under the control of the KDP Peshmerga.

Though the KDP Peshmerga and their Yezidi allies played a major role in relieving the Islamic State siege of Sinjar Mountain in November 2014, tensions have remained high between the Kurds and most of the other militias in the area. From my experience visiting the area before the Islamic State takeover, I can attest that the Yezidis of Sinjar were never overly fond of KDP domination of their local politics, but nonetheless desperately needed Kurdish protection, being lodged between the terrorist hubs of Tel Afar, Baʿaj, and the Syrian border.

Since the failure of the KDP Peshmerga in 2014, Yezidi forces, such as the YBŞ, are now seeking greater autonomy in local governance and have set up their own Self-Administration Council with PKK and YPG support. Yezidi forces in the YBŞ lacked the military power to liberate the Yezidi villages south of Sinjar, and pro-KDP Yezidi forces have frustratingly remained under KDP command, less than 30 kilometers from the homes, for the last two years. For the Kurdistan Region, although the domination of Yezidi towns became a political habit, these towns were not considered worth sustaining high casualties to liberate.

Enter the Outside Players

Turkey and Iran-backed PMF militias crashed into this complex picture during the first half of this year. Ankara’s interest in the issue has been twofold. First, the PKK and YPG roles in Sinjar were alarming to Turkey because the area appears to provide the anti-Turkey groups with a land bridge between their bases in Iraqi Kurdistan and Syrian Kurdistan, known as Rojava. Turkey and the KDP had collaborated on closing the KDP-Rojava border, and Sinjar seemed to give the PKK and YPG a way to flank this obstacle. For both the Turks and the KDP, expansion of PKK military power inside the Kurdistan Region is considered deeply unsettling. An escalation of pressure against the PKK in Sinjar may have been appealing this summer, considering President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan needed military distractions to placate the Turkish General Staff.

However, unfortunately for Turkey, the PKK, YPG, and Yezidi YBŞ enclave in Sinjar is not an easy target. Contrary to depictions of Sinjar as “another Qandil,” Sinjar is not a formidable redoubt with imposing physical defenses, such as those of the PKK’s base camps. Instead, the difficulties of attacking Sinjar are primarily political. The KDP-PKK battles of the 1990s left today’s Kurdish leadership with the indelible impression of a fanatical and skilled adversary. Additionally, spilling PKK blood, Kurdish blood, would be politically unpopular in the Kurdistan Region. For these reasons, the KDP’s preference was first to use KDP-trained Syrian Kurds, the so-called Rojava Peshmerga, to isolate Sinjar Mountain and the surrounding areas from the Syrian border, and thus from the assistance offered by the YPG. This effort failed when the YPG backed up Yezidi YBŞ and PKK forces on Sinjar Mountain’s northern foothills. Using two hundred troops, eight tanks, and two-dozen anti-aircraft cannons, the YPG blunted the Rojava Peshmerga in a series of skirmishes in early March 2017. The Syrian Kurds were clearly sensitive to the risk that Sinjar might be cut off from its Syrian base of support – an indication of YPG commitment to its salient into Iraq.

As a senior Kurdish security official told me in April 2017, for the KDP, the second best solution is for Turkey to intervene against the PKK in Sinjar. Intensified Turkish drone operations, probably launched from the KDP’s Suhela camp 90 kilometers to the northeast, were followed by demonstrative Turkish airstrikes[16] on YBŞ and PKK positions in Sinjar on April 25, 2017. A new Turkish-backed offensive by the Rojava Peshmerga seemed to be impending in the lead-up to President Erdoğan’s White House visit on May 16, but the prospect of a major Turkish air and special forces effort later faded away. One interpretation is that intensified provision of U.S. targeting intelligence to Turkey has diverted Turkish attention towards a renewed campaign targeting the PKK leadership in Qandil, where airstrikes have accelerated since late May 2017.

Popular Mobilization Forces and the Syrian border

A new impetus for potential Turkish intervention was provided by the PMF operation launched towards the Syrian-Iraq border on May 12, 2017. The seventeen-day operation saw Iran-backed militias of the Badr Organization and Kataʾib Hezbollah penetrate 100km of sparsely defended desert between their jump-off positions near Tel Afar and the Syrian border. For Turkey, one key fear related to the extension of Iranian proxy forces onto the eastern edge of the northern Syrian theater of operations. With Assad forces creeping towards the Syrian Euphrates River Valley to the southwest, the PMF’s advance created additional concerns that Assad and Iran were positioning to dominate security and political arrangements in post-Islamic State eastern Syria. If Iran were to strike a deal with the YPG, for instance, they would gain an indirect route between Iran and Damascus, albeit via Syrian Kurdish areas. This could give the YPG additional options if their relationship with the United States were to cool post-Raqqa.

As important, from Turkey’s perspective, the PMF’s advance brought the Iraqi Shiʿa militias into direct contact with the PKK, YPG, and Yezidi YBŞ forces in the Sinjar salient. The PMF advance saw the Iraqi forces seize the Yezidi mujamma that the KDP has chosen not to liberate, and saw the PMF establish at least two battalions of Yezidi PMF “hold forces.” KDP-associated Yezidi forces began to suffer desertions to the PMF during May. Eventually, the PMF connected the 35-kilometer stretch of frontline between Sinjar city and the Syrian border held by the PKK, YPG, and Yezidi YBS.

But what happened next may have surprised the Turks. For a couple of years, the dominant narrative in Ankara and Erbil has been that Baghdad and Tehran pay and support the YBŞ via the YPG-held Qamishli airport. Yet, when PMF forces advanced south of Sinjar, there was instead evidence of competing objectives. The PMF began to draw Yezidi recruits away from the YBŞ, while the PKK and YPG did their best to prevent this transfer. As Matthew Barber noted, “One area where the KDP and PKK arch-rivals agree is that Sinjar should be distanced from Baghdad. The PKK’s message to the local Yezidi population has been ‘you are not part of Iraq’. The [PMF] has the opposite message.”

Outlook for Sinjar

We have already dodged two bullets in Sinjar this spring and summer: a major Turkish escalation against the PKK and the chance of KDP-PMF fighting. Are these possibilities like to remain at bay, or does their forestallment merely reflect a calm before the storm? It may be that after Raqqa is liberated, when the YPG is less vital to the United States, Turkey and the KDP will act more resolutely in Sinjar. If the area can be isolated from Syria, then a better-planned Rojava Peshmerga offensive backed by Turkish and KDP Special Forces and heavy weapons could be attempted once again. One factor to watch is the PMF’s readiness to step in to aid the YBŞ, testing the local Yezidi willingness to trade out the PKK and YPG as protectors. The risks of military setbacks or political opportunism by Baghdad would loom large over any Turkish military escalation in Sinjar.

For Turkey, the optimal outcome may instead involve using soft power to remove the PKK and YPG from Sinjar, leveraging the threat, but not the actual use, of force. This could involve a combination of U.S. and international pressure, Kurdish and/or Iraqi inducements of self-governance, and security guarantees for local Yezidis. Ankara will remain ready to make a “Sinjar for Bashiqa” deal, in which a Baghdad-brokered PKK and YPG departure from Sinjar would result in a Turkish withdrawal from the Bashiqa base, which would constitute a major public relations victory for Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in the forthcoming election year. A trilateral Iraqi-Kurdish-Yezidi “combined security mechanism,” such as the joint checkpoints and headquarters run by the U.S. military in Sinjar before 2011, might be another option for Turkey to support.
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Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

PostAuthor: Anthea » Fri Jun 23, 2017 9:25 am

It is our belief that more than 3,00 Yazidis are still being held by ISIS

We will never know the exact number because the fate of many thousands remains unknown due to ISIS slaughter of these gentle people =((

It is genuinely HEARTBREAKING and I have frequently been reduced to tears while posting these news items

On August 3, 2014 ISIS attacked Shengal city

Almost 3 years ago we started following the plight of the gentle Yazidi people

And after all this time:

Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

We call for a minutes silence WORLDWIDE at 12 noon on 3 August

Wherever you are in the world at 12 noon Sinjar time on 3 August

Please spare a minute of your time for the beloved Yazidis :((
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Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

PostAuthor: Anthea » Mon Jun 26, 2017 9:30 pm

Slaves Of ISIS
Yazidi Survivors Share Unspeakable Horrors

The minority Yazidi people were killed and taken captive by the Islamic State. Once held as sex slaves and child soldiers, several survivors tell of the psychopathic madness of the jihadists.

The tragedy of the Yazidis is never-ending. Many members of the Middle Eastern ethnic-religious minority are still trapped as slaves of the Islamic State, or ISIS, in Mosul's inferno. Meanwhile, some of the girls who had been raped in captivity and boys who had been drafted as child soldiers are having a hard time recovering from the trauma. Having been released for ransom or escaped, they languish in camps for displaced people in Iraqi Kurdistan. We met some of them in the Darkar camp, near the Turkish-Syrian border, in a clinic of EliseCare, a French NGO. Here are their stories:

Lion cub of the caliphate

Nassan was 14 when he was kidnapped by ISIS in August 2014, along with his mother Gulay, was was 34 at the time, and his two sisters and three brothers. The oldest of the siblings, Nassan was a frail teenager, but was forced to grow up quickly. He was forced into becoming a child soldier. Nassan was faced with the choice between revolting and being killed or betraying his own people and dying as cannon fodder. He chose the narrow path to become, in his own way, his family's hero.

The young man "belonged" to an Iraqi jihadist from Mosul, who who was convinced that the Yazidis, who believe in a single God and practice millennia-old rituals taken from other religions, are worshipers of the devil.

Nassan was born in a small village deep in Iraq, not far from the sacred sites of his sect: the Sinjar mountains and the lush green valley of Lalesh, lined with white conical-domed temples that hold the tomb of Sheikh Adi, who founded the order in the 12th century. Nissan worships Melek Taus, or Peacock Angel, and respects obscure taboos such as the prohibition of eating lettuce or wearing blue.

Marginalized among the marginalized, the Yazidis have been victims of massacres for centuries. To the Sunni Arabs of ISIS and those who have come from around the world to fight alongside them in Iraq and Syria, the Yazidis are considered the dregs of humanity, heretics who must either be forcibly converted or destroyed. In August 2014, ISIS fighters from Mosul descended upon the Nineveh Plains and the Sinjar desert in an offensive aimed to wipe the Yazidis off the map. Men were killed, women and children kidnapped. The United Nations called it a genocide. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to the Sinjar mountains where, according to local legend, Noah's ark settled after the flood. They were saved with the help of forces of the Kurdish fighters coming from Syria and Turkey, as well as U.S. air power.

Nassan was not so lucky. After being a prisoner in Mosul for six months, he was deported to Syria with his family. His master, who grew tired of raping his mother, sold his prey and her children to a trafficker who, with four chartered buses full of slaves, headed for Raqqa, an ISIS stronghold on the other side of the border. There, Nassan was separated from his family. Delivered to a new owner, he said goodbye to his mother before joining the “lion cubs of the caliphate,” ISIS' child-soldier factory for fighters under the age of 16.

Nassan entered a “training institute” near Suluk, on the Turkish border. He quickly discovered the fate reserved for "apostates” who try to escape: at best, imprisonment in deep, dungeon-like pits with just three dates a day to eat; at worst, execution. He was taught the Sharia with the blows of a stick. Theology classes advocated an ultra-rigorous reading of the Koran. He was also taught how to use weapons and the basics of military tactics; some notions of anatomy, mostly learining the sensitive parts of the human body like the neck muscles, the solar plexus, or the testicles; and the fundamentals of dealing with future prisoners. Nassan and his Yazidi comrades, who were also forcibly enlisted, were the scapegoats of their classmates. He absorbed the iron discipline like a good student. "We were promised we'd be free men after the classes," he said.

Everywhere I went, I was looking for my family.

Six months later, the "lion cub" was released and incorporated into a combat unit. Nassan appealed to his military-religious superiors for a dispensation based on his newly acquired knowledge of “Sharia sciences.” He had only one kidney and still suffers from the effects of a leg broken in childhood. This was enough to justify an exemption according to Islamic law. He was transferred to the kitchen, where he helped prepare meals for his brigade on the front lines of Aleppo and Tabqa. “I was a jihadist among the jihadists but everywhere I went, I was looking for my family. That was my obsession. I missed my mother,” he remembers.

In the beginning of 2016, he was in Palmyra, where ISIS was under threat from rebels of the Free Syrian Army. He wandered the streets of the ancient city, weapon slung over his shoulder, interrogating the city's inhabitants until one day he accidentally came across one of his brothers who was out running an errand. The family was being held nearby by a local jihadist, Abu Hamad. His mother, brothers and sister occupied the ground floor of their masters' house. The jihadist lived there with his wife and children. Abu Hamad regularly raped and beat Nassan's mother, and his wife beat her at every opportunity. The jihadist's children were charged with beating the child slaves, Nassan's siblings.

Nassan tried to pressure Abu Haman into releasing his family. "I went to see him every day. He demanded $35,000 in ransom, but I had no money. He wouldn't budge. I ended up dragging him to Sharia court in Raqqa," says Nassan. Again, he relied on Islamic law to beat the jihadists at their own game. "I'm a Muslim! a member of the Islamic State! I have the right to live with my mother!" he argued. A magistrate ruled in his favor. The young man was a "free man" affiliated with ISIS, therefore he could, according to Sharia, recover his relatives. The master was ordered to free the slaves, but was nevertheless allowed to keep the eldest daughter, who was 12. The girl, who belonged to Abu Hamid's wife, remained exploitable, therefore "rape-able," at will.

Nassan also managed to get, from the "office of confiscated homes," a place in Raqqa to house his family. He could continue cooking for the jihadist combatants while putting together the last stage of his plan: fleeing Syria. Contacted by cell phone through the channels of the government of Iraqi Kurdistan, a smuggler took over the operation. The group secretly left Raqqa in December for a journey that ended at the gates of freedom: The first Syrian Kurdish checkpoint of the YPG, the Syrian branch of the Turkish Kurd forces. Two weeks later, Saleh, a friend of Nassan's, another jihadi of Yazidi origin who was with him at the caliphate lion-cub school and who was also able to save his own family, was saved through the same channels.

I am just my unhappiness.

These days, the two teens meet regularly at the camp for the displaced near Zakho in Iraqi Kurdistan. Nassan has started learning English using an old dictionary. Saleh learned of his father's death and of his brother's murder during the Kocho massacre carried out by ISIS on August 15, 2014, which claimed more than 80 lives.

About 10,000 Yazidi men, women and children died, were kidnapped or disappeared in the ethnic-religious cleansing campain carried out by ISIS.

Gulay, Nassan's mother, has found her husband, but cries over her daughter who is still being held prisoner in Raqqa. "A month ago that bastard Abu Hamad demanded $35,000 for her liberation in a recording on social media. We don't have the means to pay. His cell phone has been off since the beginning of the fighting in Raqqa." Sitting at her side, one of her children is agitated. With a sudden movement the child stretches out his arm like holding a gun, and pretends to shoot his mother in the head.

The rape of Koda's little girls

Koda is 30, but appears 60. She is flanked by Galia, 7, and Marwa, 6, both silent and still. The two girls were raped repeatedly by ISIS members for months on end. Koda does not hide her utter despair: she has no more honor to defend. "We experienced the worst of the worst with my two masters, a Saudi and a Tunisian. They abused the girls and beat them with a cane when they made noise like children their age do. I thought of committing suicide, but I couldn't abandon them. In Raqqa, there were many of us in the same situation," she says. Koda was sold by her master from Mosul for a few hundred dollars.

She was resold six times in Syria, passing from hand to hand. A broke jihadist published her photo on WhatsApp, demanding a ransom of $23,000, including the children — a common practice. Her brother-in-law managed to collect the money and 17 months ago he bought her back. Since then she's been wandering the Darkar Ajam camp, dressed in black from head to toe. "It's the color of sadness and the inside of my heart," she says. "I don't have anything. I am nothing — I am just my unhappiness. My husband disappeared almost three years ago with the rest of my family, fleeing ISIS. I don't have a present or a future. Just three broken girls."

Parwin’s smile

Parwin, 23, was rescued twice. The first time was last September, when Mohammed, a kind man from Mosul, stole her from the emir Hamza, a senior ISIS official. The second time was at the end of the year when the eastern part of Mosul was liberated by the Iraqi army. On December 30, Parwin picked up her daughter Suriana, then 3, and crossed the city, destroyed by bombardments and fighting. She walked for hours in the rain to a meeting point where an Arab sheikh drove her to Bartalla, a Christian city controlled by the Nineveh Plain Protection Units, an Assyrian militia.

A remarkable beauty, Parwin was most likely considered a prime catch by ISIS predators. Sold and resold from one emir to another, she had 11 masters. "There was not one worse than the other — they were all horrible and more or less violent. I was chained, raped, beaten, my daughter was beaten," she says. Those who could have shown some compassion didn't out of cowardice. She remember's Khaled, a thick brute who grabbed her just after her abduction. He was a Yazidi who had secretly converted to Islam before ISIS arrived. He died in combat a year later. But she mainly remembers her last husband, the emir Hamza, a big boss who used to offer her as a gift to his guests.

Parwin tried to escape many times. One day, she fled on foot with a fellow slave without realizing that Hamza had spun his car around. Vengeance fell upon her daughter. The girl was locked up without food and the emir threatened to send her to Syria to separate her from her mother indefinitely. Then she was saved by Muhammad the man from Mosul, who put an end to her suffering.

“The battle for the liberation of Mosul had begun. We were afraid of airstrikes. We changed hiding place at every alert," Parwin said. "Mohammed asked me for nothing and never abused me. If he had been caught, he would have been hanged.”

https://www.worldcrunch.com/syria-crisi ... le-horrors
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Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

PostAuthor: Anthea » Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:35 am

NO news is NOT good news

I, like most other people, believed that many of the more than 3,00 Yazidi captives were being held in Mosul and had expected large numbers would be set free by ISIS as it's strangle-hold on Mosul diminishes

No such luck :shock:

The propaganda machine would have us believe that ISIS has moved the defenseless Yazidi captives into Syria

We DEMAND to know where the Yazidi captives are

We DEMAND immediate action to protect and release the Yazidi captives
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Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

PostAuthor: Anthea » Mon Jul 03, 2017 8:18 pm

Horror of ISIS sex slave app: Virgins put on sale by twisted jihadis

SEX slaves are traded through an app by vile Islamic State (ISIS) fighters who swap pictures and prices of young Yazidi girls.

The wives of jihadis claim their husbands are “obsessed” with the women being held agains their will.

One woman revealed her husband traded them through encrypted apps, selling them based in their looks .

She told an Arabic TV programme: “It was a market for sex slaves.

“They were sharing photos of the sex slaves with the best make-up and clothes, and asking $2,000 for this one, $3,000 for that one. A virgin cost $10,000.”

Some said the sex slaves were lavished with gifts including expensive lipstick and clothes - a far cry from the tales told by those captured by ISIS who are often shared between men, beaten and raped.

The brides of ISIS told their tales to reporter Jenan Moussa, claiming jealousy was rife.

An ISIS bride originally from Lebannon said: “There was a lot of tension between the wives and the sex slaves.

“Some of the wives even divorced their husbands because of that. They were spending too much on the sex slaves, buying them the best make-up, clothes and accessories.”

Women are fleeing to refugee camps as the battle against ISIS heads towards its self declared “capital” in Raqqa.

The city is on the verge of being liberated by Western backed Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

Despite being cared for in refugee camps the wives of the jihadis showed little emotion over the atrocities committed in Syria.

One said: “ISIS deceived us with propaganda.”

A woman in the camp in Turkey said she agreed with a criminal’s hand being chopped off, as long as it was a third offence.

While others even admitted attraction to the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The women were picked up as they attempted to cross into Turkey.

Now, they are all being kept in a separate part of the camp at Ain Issa, north of Raqqa.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/824 ... ISIS-wives
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Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

PostAuthor: Anthea » Tue Jul 04, 2017 9:07 am

Shengal’s YJŞ forces in Raqqa to avenge Êzidî women

YJŞ fighters have arrived in Raqqa, after yesterday's announcement by the YJŞ General Command of participation in the 'Great Battle' for Raqqa's liberation to ensure the freedom of the enslaved Êzidî women.

Shengal Women’s Units-YJŞ General Command issued a written statement yesterday morning and announced that they will partake in the Operation to Liberate Raqqa alongside YPJ forces.

A group of YJŞ fighters headed thereafter right away to Raqqa. Local sources affirm that YJŞ fighters have arrived in Raqqa and have been welcomed by YPJ and YPG fighters.

A commander of the YPJ welcomed the YJŞ fighters with an official speech and said: "That fighters from the holy land of Shengal have joined the operation for Raqqa's liberation here, this will mark the beginning of an absolute avenge for the women of the holy land."

Following the short welcoming ceremony, the YJŞ fighters headed straight to the battle fronts of Raqqa :ymapplause:
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Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

PostAuthor: Anthea » Tue Jul 04, 2017 12:27 pm

Captive Yazidi woman contacts family, hoping for freedom

The circulation of an ISIS document and a phone call has given much hope to a Yazidi family that their daughter is still alive after she says she was traded 10 times and now lives with the family of a dead ISIS militant.

A father and mother along with their ten children, seven daughters and three sons, fell into the hands of ISIS militants in the village of Tal Qasab during the ISIS attack on Shingal in August 2014. The parents were separated from their children.

“This was a 12-member family. They were all kidnapped," Khairi Bozani, head of the Yazidi affairs at the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) religious affairs ministry, told Rudaw. “The fates of the rest are unknown.”

His office helped to rescue three of the children, a seven-year old girl, a six-year old girl, and a four-year old boy.

Now, the family has received the first news from another child, Fatima*, in nearly three years.

“Fatima made a phone call three days ago from [her location under ISIS control], saying the person who had bought her has been killed. ‘I will be free if the bombardments don’t kill me,’” her cousin recounted to Rudaw.

Fatima said she had been traded 10 times and had no information about her parents or siblings. She also said that she was currently living with the family of the dead ISIS militant who had bought her. She had attempted to escape three times but was arrested every time.

The Iraqi army discovered many documents while liberating the right bank neighborhoods of Mosul from ISIS. One of the documents shows that Fatima was sold to an ISIS militant for $1,500.

The document appears to have been issued by an ISIS justice council in Nineveh.

According to the document, in August 2016, ISIS Fatima was sold from one militant to another. The document refers to her as a sex slave and the militant as the “legitimate owner.” The fingerprints of the two ISIS militants are on the paper, which also bears the stamp of the head of the ISIS court.

The notes of the judge are also written at the bottom of the document. “Both brothers, Abu M and Abu Z, were present in front of me and agreed. Abu M sold his own property, Fatima, to Abu Z for $1,500.00 who has paid all the money and will therefore become her legitimate owner. In return, Abu M will hand Fatima over to Abu Z.”

Two people witnessed the transaction.

In August 2014, ISIS attacked Shingal and its surroundings. An estimated 6,800 Yezidis were seized in the attack, of whom 4,300 have so far been rescued, according to the KRG.

ISIS militants shot many of the men and treated the women as spoils of war.

*Not her real name. Any information that could identify Fatima, her family, or her captors has been omitted from this story to protect her safety.

http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/030720176
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Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

PostAuthor: Anthea » Thu Jul 06, 2017 10:16 pm

People of Shengal are returning home

Shengal’s Khanasor town Council Member Ömer Salih said Êzidîs are returning to their lands in growing numbers and called for support for reconstruction.

The Shengali Êzidî society has had to live in exile for the last 3 years, but they are starting to return in groups with the liberation of Shengal and its villages.

Shengal’s Xanesor town Council Member Ömer Salih spoke about the returns and said: “Many families have returned to Shengal center and villages up to date, and the returns continue daily. As the Xanesor Council, we are offering them all kinds of aid.”

Salih said the Council helps 3 thousand families monthly and that they set up an aid center. They deliver aid to 2 or 3 villages at a time and they take care of a hundred poor families apart from that.

Salih said they deliver daily necessities like flour, rice and soap to the families who return to Shengal and added: “There have been returns to almost all villages of Shengal, and people continue to come back. Currently there are 3000 people who returned to the Borik village, and more are on their way.”

150 FAMILIES RETURNED TO SHENGAL IN JUNE

Xanesor Council Member Ömer Salih said over 150 families returned to Shengal in June alone and added: “We are expecting some 300 families to return in July. We believe this number will rise in the coming days, because in many families who stayed in Southern Kurdistan there are school-aged children. We expect the returns to accelerate with the school’s closing for the summer.”

CALL FOR SUPPORT

Salih said they try to fulfill the needs of the people of Shengal using their own means, and called on human rights organizations and aid organizations for support in better fulfilling people’s needs and reconstructing Shengal.
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Re: Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

PostAuthor: Anthea » Fri Jul 07, 2017 1:56 am

Yazidi teenager captured by Isis says they were planning 'big, big attack' on Europe

Arsem Ibraham was just 13 when he was abducted and has spent three years with Isis being trained to kill and idolise suicide bombers

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A Yazidi boy captured by Isis has told of the brutal tactics the group used to brainwash its child soldiers.

Arsem Ibraham was just 13 when the Islamist group attacked his people on Sinjar Mountain in Iraq in 2013.

He and the other boys who were captured were separated from the adults. The women and girls were sold into a sexual slavery while the adult men were murdered.

He told ITV News: “Then they blindfolded me but I could still hear the shooting. Three shots into one man.”

The boys who survived were then taken to Raqqa in Syria, Isis’ “capital” where they were forced to join something the group called “The Caliphate Cubs”.

Here he was trained how to fight for the group using rocket launchers and automatic rifles.

They were shown videos of suicide attacks and told to look up to the perpetrators.

He said he was taken to a military camp for six months and told he must kill Kurds and rebel groups like the Free Syrian Army as they were all “infidels”.

Kurdish authorities told CNN last year that as many as 600 Yazidi children had been abducted by the group but around 200 had managed to escape.

It said they feared they were being used as cannon fodder as the terrorists lose ground and fighters.

ISIS is said to be putting its most experienced fighters on the front line and was using child soldiers in sentry positions and suicide bomb squads.

​Arsem said: "Every day after training we were shown the latest videos of suicide attacks. We were told: 'Look up to these brothers'.

"We were told whoever blows themselves up will go to heaven. There will be 70 virgins waiting for us and rivers of wine."

There was talk of sending some of the boys through Turkey to launch attacks in Europe.

“They said: 'Don’t worry. We will do a big, big attack in Europe. Isis is working hard on that.’”

Coalition forces, backed by US-led air strikes, managed to push Isis out of its second city, Mosul in Iraq, last month. US-backed Kurdish forces are also closing in on Raqqa, Isis's 'capital' in Syria.

Arsem was captured by Kurdish fighters as they moved towards the outskirts of Raqqa and he will soon be reunited with his family.

He said he was looking forward to seeing his mother again and would tell her "I have been born again".

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 28116.html
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