Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

[Anthea]

Two Yazidi people released after four years in Islamic State captivity

Kurdish authorities announced on Sunday the release of two Yazidi people, who were held in captive by Islamic State since 2014.

“Kurdish troops have released a pair, a young man and a woman, aged 18, after they were kidnapped by Islamic State in Tal Banat village in Nineveh’s Sinjar district four years ago,” Alghad Press website quoted the Kurdish governmental office in charge of Yazidi abductees as saying in a statement.

According to the statement, “strenuous efforts are currently exerted to release the remaining Yazidi victims from the Islamic State’s grip.”

In August 2014, Islamic State militants launched an offensive in northern Iraq, executing thousands of Yazidi men and elderly women and forcing 300,000 Yazidis to flee. IS also sold more than 6,000 women and children into slavery, subjecting them to systematic mass rapes that the UN and other countries have defined as genocide.

US-backed Kurdish forces drove IS out of Sinjar in November 2015, but few Yazidis have returned, and an estimated 3,500 remain in IS captivity in Iraq and Syria, according to Human Rights Watch.

The Islamic State group emerged in 2014 when it seized large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, declaring a plan to establish an Islamic “caliphate” from Mosul city.

However, Iraqi troops, backed by a U.S.-led international coalition, were able to defeat the militant group three years after it captured about a third of Iraq’s territory.

https://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/two- ... captivity/

[Anthea]

Shengal’s autonomous status must be recognized

The ISIS attacks against Yazidis on August 3, 2014 in Shengal
was a “genocide of humanity” and we demand status for Yazidis

The European Kurdish Democratic Society Congress (KCDK-E) Co-Presidential Council issued a written statement for the 4th anniversary of the genocidal attacks against Shengal and said:

"The barbaric ISIS gangs led by the Turkish state headed by Dictator Erdoğan and nurtured by regressive forces in the region attacked Shengal on August 3, 2014 and enacted a genocide.”

KCDK-E mentioned the Yazidis abducted, killed and sold in slave markets during the genocidal attacks and said, “This tragedy imposed upon our people happened in front of the eyes of humanity as a whole, but the world still stays silent.”

KCDK-E also stated that YPŞ and YJŞ have been formed as self-defense forces so there is never another massacre, and stressed that the Yazidis have built their own system of self-governance against new attacks and massacres.

“The danger isn’t over in Shengal,” said KCDK-E and added: “Turkish colonialism continues its attacks at a similar level to ISIS. Dictator Erdoğan wants to achieve what ISIS failed to do over the invasion of Southern Kurdistan.”

The statement continued with: “We condemn this shame of the century that happened in front of the whole global public. The UN and the rest of humanity should recognize this genocide and take appropriate action.

The status of Shengal, a sacred settlement for Yazidis, must be recognized. The will for self-defense and self-government built by the people of Shengal to protect themselves must be accepted.

As the KCDK-E, we call on our people to stand against this genocide of August 3, 2014 with resolve. We condemn this barbaric massacre and genocide imposed upon our people in Shengal. We call on all to increase the demonstrations and events to embrace Shengal further. Supporting and furthering the Shengal’s self-governance is a duty of dignity for all Kurds.

As the KCDK-E , TJK-E and Yazidi institutions, we are calling on all our institutions and people in Europe, Japan, Canada and Australia and all who call themselves human to participate in the activities to condemn the Shengal massacre and remember the martyrs to be held in city centers on August 3 at 18:00.”

[Anthea]

We, at Roj Bash Kurdistan, have been following the plight since it was first known about

We have more than 700 posts aimed at informing the general public about the ongoing genocide

We worry that many sites ignore the ongoing horror that several THOUSAND innocent Yazidis endure on a daily bases

We wish to remind the word that the victims were not martyrs who died fighting for a cause

Those who were slaughtered were innocent men, women and children, peacefully going about their daily routine

Those who were slaughtered in such terribly horrifying, painful ways, were totally innocent of any wrongdoing

Some buried alive

Others brutally butchered and left to die slowly and painfully

Women and children raped, tortured and slaughtered

All this took place in front of terrified friends and families

The THOUSANDS taken captive, their fate unknown

Those left behind still crying and screaming

The thousands who ran to the mountains for safety

The world sat back and allowed the Yazidis to die on the mountain

The 3,000 plus Yazidis who are still held captive and undergoing rape and torture

And their families whose daily lives are a living nightmare

The world sits back and allows the Yazidis to be tortured and raped

The Yazidi lands still unprotected and unsafe for Yazidis to return to

The world sits back and allows the Yazidis to live in fear of further attacks

Assorted Kurdish, Turkish, ISIS and other jihadist groups hoover at the borders awaiting their chance to involve themselves where they do not belong

Yazidis are now being used as pawns in Kurdish and Turkish political games and gerrymandering

RESCUE THE CAPTIVES

Stop playng games, the top priority should have always been to rescue the captives

SECURE YAZIDI LANDS

Secure the Yazidi lands for the Yazidi people and build them new towns and cities

THE WORLD MUST PROTECT YAZIDI LANDS AND PEOPLE

[Anthea]

For these victims of ISIS, the conflict isn't over

"Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of "Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield." The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author; view more opinion articles on CNN. "

At the State Department's "ministerial to advance religious freedom" last week, Vice President Mike Pence noted the plight of the Yazidis, an Iraqi community ravaged by ISIS, whose fighters have slaughtered Yazidi men and captured, raped and enslaved Yazidi women.

Thousands of Yazidis remain missing to this day or in ISIS captivity

"The United States of America, I promise you, will always call ISIS brutality what it truly is: It is genocide, plain and simple."

Pence's mention of the thousands who remain missing highlights a key point: the Yazidi crisis is not over. Far from it. And though most of the world, with its donor fatigue and decimated attention span, has long ago moved on, victims of this crisis do not have this luxury. Today they confront grief over the remaining missing, a lack of mental health services for those returning after the trauma of enslavement, mass displacement as homes remain out of reach, and a shortage of economic opportunities which exacerbates all the other ills.

I spoke recently with aid workers in northern Iraq fighting to help the Yazidis who have escaped enslavement. They tell of survivors struggling to navigate the very basics of returning to what once was normal life in their community -- a community now confined to tents for the displaced, visible across the region.

"They are too traumatized to be able to speak,"

SEED is an organization which provides psychotherapy, counseling and social work services to Yazidis. SEED Kurdistan is working to support survivors who face the unimaginable challenge of restarting their lives after living through hell.

Survivors "also face challenges trying to reconcile with the family, the community to rebuild their lives," Abdulla says. This reconciliation, he says, is complicated by the fact that "they keep getting flashbacks about what happened and they keep remembering loved ones who were lost."

Abdulla keeps his phone close at all times, especially to help those highest-need cases who have returned home. This includes survivors threatening to harm themselves or those facing threats from their families. Those survivors who need protection face danger 24 hours a day.

"Those are the most difficult cases," Abdulla says. "For example, a woman who will come back with a child that was born with an ISIS father. She wants to keep the child, but the family doesn't accept it -- they accept her back but not the child. They want to force her to give up the child, so she runs away."

Right now, there is no real place for this survivor to go if she wants to keep her baby, though SEED hopes to change that in the future. Some of the children born of enslaved Yazidis and their ISIS captors are in orphanages or accepted by local families, aid workers say. But mothers who want to keep the children born of their rape and enslavement have no safe place to go -- and almost no support to help them to process their decision-making.

What organizations can do right now is help survivors come together and get some help through therapy and community.

Along with SEED Kurdistan, survivors also can find mental health support at the two rehabilitation centers run by the Emma Organization for Human Development, which offer art and music therapy for Yazidi survivors, among other tools. Emma's goal is to help survivors manage trauma through therapy and grief ceremonies.

Driving out ISIS is just the start -- rebuilding Raqqa will take years

"Most of these women have lost so many people, but they didn't have any time to grieve them," says Emma's co-founder, Dr Bayan Kader Rasul, a psychiatrist at Erbil Psychiatric Hospital. "It's huge, the need for services."

She notes that the camps Yazidi survivors thought they would call home for one year now feel far from temporary.

"Everyone needs basic shelter and safety and after that you need community-based services. They don't have them," Rasul says.

And, like Abdulla, she notes that those girls and women returning pregnant from ISIS enslavement have no place to turn. She recounts the story of a 15-year-old girl who reached Emma's offices nearly ready to deliver her baby born of rape.

Help for the Yazidi

"She said, 'I don't want to see this baby, I don't want to have this baby,'" Rasul told me. Rasul said her medical colleague delivered the baby, a little girl, who immediately went to an adoptive family -- leaving one more teenage survivor of abuse, rape and enslavement who has returned home to an uncertain future.

What is needed to face this continuing crisis is ongoing support: economic investment, mental health support and funds for homes, not tents. Drive by the camps which were set up to help Yazidis three years ago, and you see rows of these tents, which are subject to the whims of nature, including flooding, as happened earlier this year.

The Yazidi crisis isn't over. Helping survivors by funding organizations offering education and economic assistance, housing services and lasting mental health support is what this moment calls for. We must strengthen the Yazidi community so it will not be vulnerable to the next set of horrors.

"If the world really wants to say that we helped the Yazidi people, they should stay for longer and invest in the community," Abdulla says. "Invest in their education and their households — anything that supports them to be stronger."

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/31/opin ... index.html

[Anthea]

We will avenge Yazidi women

It has been 4 years since ISIS enacted a massacre against the Yazidi people in Shengal on August 3, 2014, but the wound is still fresh. Thousands of Yazidis were killed in ISIS attacks, thousands of others were abducted, and thousands of Yazidi women were sold in slave markets

There are thousands of Yazidi women and children whose fate is still unknown

Shengal Women’s Union (YJŞ) fighters spoke about the 4th anniversary of the massacre and said they will avenge all the Yazidi people who were abducted, exiled and murdered.

THEY WANTED TO COMPLETELY DESTROY THE YAZIDIS

YJŞ fighter Havîn Şengal: First, I remember those who fought the massacre and fell martyr. There was a ruthless massacre against the Yazidi people in Shengal on August 3. There was a sudden attack in the middle of the night, and thousands were killed before people could figure out what was going on. Children who fled to the Shengal mountains didn’t have even one glass of water. The people sought refuge in the mountains to defend themselves, but thousands fell to the hands of the gangs, who wanted to completely destroy the Yazidi people and abducted women and girls. The women threw themselves off cliffs to avoid that fate, some hanged themselves.

“OUR HOPE WAS REBORN”

We saw the truth of our enemies in the massacre in Shengal. We saw this truth that they managed to hide for years very clearly. Children were killed in front of their mothers, women were sold in slave markets. Despite everything that happened, a new hope was born in Shengal. Every day we fight to be stronger with this new hope. Those with power attack everywhere to end the Kurdish people. In Afrin, in Southern Kurdistan and anywhere Kurds are present, the attacks continue.

We resist these attacks against the Kurdish people with the resistance we cultivated with the ideas of Leader Apo. As YJŞ fighters, we will do whatever is necessary so the Yazidi people won’t suffer another massacre. We promised our people to protect them no matter what.

YAZIDIS SUBJECTED TO MANY MASSACRES

YJŞ fighter İmralî Öcalan: The Yazidi people must learn from the genocide that befell them and recognize the truth of the enemy. The Yazidi faith goes back a long way, and has been unable to defend itself despite having suffered many massacres. The gangs who killed Yazidis wanted to destroy their future as well through the massacre of children.

WE WILL AVENGE THE YAZIDIS

The Yazidi massacre caused great pains. Thousands of children were massacred, thousands of others were orphaned, women were sold in slave markets. They wanted to completely destroy the Yazidi people. But the will that emerged birthed a new hope for the Yazidi people. Fighters who protected their people through resistance and struggle birthed a new hope. This was a good response to the massacre.

As the YJŞ, we will avenge the abducted and murdered Yazidi women. And the Yazidi women themselves must recognize their own reality and increase their struggle. We will avenge them through organizing women, through resistance and through making the truth known, and we will give the necessary response. For us to succeed, Yazidi youth and women must take their place in the struggle and always resist.

TO AVOID ANOTHER MASSACRE EVER AGAIN

YJŞ fighter Zîn Şengal: The purpose of this genocide was to completely annihilate the Yazidi people. This genocide also revealed the truth about who the enemies and allies are. HPG guerrillas and the people of Rojava gave great support. This has continued to this day. The Yazidi people formed their own forces to avoid another massacre ever again. Leader Apo’s ideas disseminated quite well among the Yazidi people and took on a life of their own. Our defense forces are there to protect the people’s values and culture, and to defend them. The Yazidi people will never surrender and will do whatever is necessary to avoid another massacre.

[Anthea]

3 August 2014

“They came to destroy”: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis

ISIS has committed the crime of genocide as well as multiple crimes against humanity and war crimes against the Yazidis, thousands of whom are held captive in the Syrian Arab Republic where they are subjected to almost unimaginable horrors.

The present report, which focuses on violations committed in Syria, is based on 45 interviews with survivors, religious leaders, smugglers, activists, lawyers, medical personnel, and journalists. Considerable documentary material was used to corroborate information collected by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic.

ISIS has sought to destroy the Yazidis through killings; sexual slavery, enslavement, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and forcible transfer causing serious bodily and mental harm; the infliction of conditions of life that bring about a slow death; the imposition of measures to prevent Yazidi children from being born, including forced conversion of adults, the separation of Yazidi men and women, and mental trauma; and the transfer of Yazidi children from their own families and placing them with ISIS fighters, thereby cutting them off from beliefs and practices of their own religious community, and erasing their identity as Yazidis. The public statements and conduct of ISIS and its fighters clearly demonstrate that ISIS intended to destroy the Yazidis of Sinjar, composing the majority of the world’s Yazidi population, in whole or in part.

In the present report, the Commission has made wide-ranging recommendations to the United Nations, the Governments of Syria and Iraq, and the wider international community concerning the protection of and care for the Yazidi community of Sinjar. While noting States’ obligations under the Genocide Convention, the Commission repeated its call for the Security Council to refer urgently the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court, or to establish an ad hoc tribunal with relevant geographic and temporal jurisdiction.

Over 3,200 Yazidi women and children are still held by ISIS. Most are in Syria

I. Introduction

1. In the early hours of 3 August 2014, fighters from the terrorist group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS), 1 flooded out of their bases in Syria and Iraq, and swept across Sinjar. The Sinjar region of northern Iraq is, at its nearest point, less than 15 kilometres from the Syrian border. It is home to the majority of the world’s Yazidis, 2 a distinct religious community whose beliefs and practice span thousands of years, and whose adherents ISIS publicly reviles as infidels.

2. Within days of the attack, reports emerged of ISIS committing almost unimaginable atrocities against the Yazidi community: of men being killed or forced to convert; of women and girls, some as young as nine, sold at market and held in sexual slavery by ISIS fighters; and of boys ripped from their families and forced into ISIS training camps. It was quickly apparent that the horrors being visited upon captured Yazidis were occurring systematically across ISIS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq.

3. In this report, the independent international Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian

Arab Republic 3 examines the crimes ISIS is committing against Yazidis, thousands of whom are now held in Syria. While the report analyses a range of international crimes, it specifically seeks to determine whether ISIS has committed the crime of genocide.

4. This report, which focuses on violations occurring in Syria, is based on 45 interviews with survivors, religious leaders, smugglers, activists, lawyers, medical personnel, and journalists. Considerable documentary material was used to corroborate the information collected by the Commission. This includes hundreds of statements, photographs, satellite images, and reports, as well as the factual findings of the OHCHR Fact-Finding Mission on the human rights situation in Iraq. 4 ISIS has not sought to hide or reframe its conduct. Where the Commission was able to determine provenance, materials disseminated by the terrorist group and/or its individual members have also formed part of this analysis.

1 In its Resolution 2249 (2015), the UN Security Council determined that ISIS “constitutes a global

and unprecedented threat to international peace and security”. 2 In Kurdish, referred to as Êzîdi or Êzdî.

3 “The Commission”. The commissioners are Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro (Chairperson), Karen Koning

AbuZayd, Vitit Muntarbhorn and Carla Del Ponte.

4 A/HRC/28/18, Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights on

the human rights situation in Iraq in the light of abuses committed by the so-called Islamic State in

Iraq and the Levant and associated groups, 13 March 2015. (“OHCHR Iraq Report” or

“A/HRC/28/18”). The Commission also took note of the Statement by Adama Dieng, Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, and Jennifer Welsh, Special

Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Responsibility to Protect, on the situation in Iraq, 12

August 2014. Secondary sources of information also included UNOSAT reports, the United States

Holocaust Memorial Museum’s report “Our Generation is Gone: The Islamic State’s Targeting of Iraqi Minorities in Ninewa” (“US Holocaust Memorial Museum Report”) and various inputs provided by the Kurdish Regional Government’s Genocide Committee, the Sinjar Local Administration, and notably, documentation provided by Yazda.


II. Mandate

5. During its investigations of violations committed in Syria, the Commission determined that ISIS has forcibly transferred – and continues to forcibly transfer – thousands of Yazidi women and children into Syria.

6. It is estimated that at least 3,200 Yazidi women and girls remain captives of ISIS, the majority of them held inside ISIS-controlled areas of Syria. It has not been possible to estimate the number of Yazidi boys who have been or are being trained with ISIS forces, though it is clear that many such boys are trained and then forced to fight during ISIS offensives in Syria. Much more limited information is available concerning the fate and whereabouts of captured Yazidi men and older boys who survived the August 2014 ISIS onslaught.

7. In accordance with its mandate, the present report focuses on violations committed against Yazidis in Syria. As the initial attack occurred in northern Iraq, however, it is necessary to set out ISIS conduct in Iraq in order to understand the context in which ISIS forcibly displaced Yazidi civilians into Syria, and the architecture of the system, initially set up by ISIS in Iraq, which allowed these crimes to take place as they did.

8. While the Commission’s mandate is limited to violations committed in Syria, its analysis of ISIS conduct demonstrating relevant intent, as well as of information evidencing the criminal liability of ISIS fighters, their military commanders, and their religious and ideological leaders, is not geographically limited.

III. Applicable Law

9. Article II of the 1948 Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 5 to which Syria and Iraq are parties, states that the crime of genocide is committed when a person commits a prohibited act with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such. Prohibited acts are (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. This definition is replicated, without amendment, in Article 6 of the Rome Statute.

10. The crime of genocide requires that the perpetrator have a special intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected group. The genocidal acts must be committed against a person because of their membership in a particular group and as an incremental step in the overall objective of destroying the group. 6 This special intent is also distinct from motive.

It is not a contradiction, however, that perpetrators who have the special intent to destroy the protected group may also be fuelled by multiple other motives such as capture of territory, economic advantage, sexual gratification, and spreading terror.

11. The jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has been instrumental in deconstructing the definition of genocide, and is referred throughout the Legal Analysis section below.

5 Hereinafter, the Genocide Convention.

6 Prosecutor v. Rutaganda, ICTR Trial Judgment, 6 Dec. 1999 (“Rutaganda Trial Judgment”), para.

59; Prosecutor v. Jelisi ć, ICTY Trial Judgment, 14 December 1999 (“Jelisi ć Trial Judgment”), para.

66.

A/HRC/32/CRP.2

5

12. Article IV of the Genocide Convention obliges contracting States to punish not only persons committing genocide, but also those who conspire to commit genocide, directly and publicly incite the commission of genocide, attempt to commit genocide, and/or who are complicit in genocide. 7

13. It is worthy of note that “genocide” as it exists in the public imagination often departs from the legal definition. The colloquial use of the term “genocide”, steeped in images of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, has tended to signify the organised extermination of masses of civilians, regardless of the specific intention behind the killings. This is not, however, the legal definition of the crime of genocide. 8 Whether a genocide has occurred, by a mass killing or not, hinges upon the existence in the perpetrator’s mind, at the time of the commission of the prohibited act, of a specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected group by one of the specified methods, alongside the intent to commit the specified act. 9

14. Crimes against humanity include a wider range of offences. There is no requirement that the perpetrator intend to destroy a prohibited group: it is sufficient that the criminal acts be committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population. Underlying criminal acts, as enumerated in Article 7(1) of the Rome Statute, which may constitute a crime against humanity and which are relevant to this paper include murder; extermination; enslavement; imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty; torture; rape; other inhumane acts; sexual slavery; and sexual violence.

15. War crimes, committed in the context of a non-international armed conflict, include murder; rape; sexual slavery; sexual violence; cruel treatment; torture; outrages upon personal dignity; using, conscripting and enlisting children; and attacking civilians.

16. The conduct underlying genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes as set out above are, in and of themselves, abuses of international human rights, including of the right to life, liberty and security of person; the prohibition against slavery; and the prohibition against torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

IV. Factual Findings

A. The Sinjar Region of northern Iraq

Before ISIS attacked, I was happy. My husband adored me, loved our children. We had a good life. ISIS held me for over a year. I haven’t seen my husband since the day of the attack. I dream of him.

Woman, held for 18 months, sold twice

17. The Sinjar region is located in northwest Iraq, close to the Iraqi-Syrian border. Hundreds of villages are spread out around the base of Mount Sinjar, with one main town,

7 See Article III, Genocide Convention.

8 While this has not historically been the case, theoretically the crime of genocide could be

committed without any killings taking place. Only Article 6(a) of the Rome Statute requires the act of killing another person for the actus reus of the crime of genocide to be committed.

9 In its Commentary on the 1996 Draft Code of Crimes Against the Peace and Security of Mankind,

the International Law Commission qualified genocide’s specific intent as “the distinguishing characteristic of this particular crime under international law.”

A/HRC/32/CRP.2

6

Sinjar town, huddled at the base of the southeastern side of the mountain. 10 Mount Sinjar, an arid 100-kilometre-long mountain range, forms the region’s heart.

18. Prior to the 3 August 2014 attack, the region’s population was predominantly Yazidi, with a smaller number of Arabs who followed Sunni Islam. Yazidis and Arabs lived together in some villages and in Sinjar town, with many families enjoying friendly, neighbourly relations spanning generations.

19. The Yazidi faith requires that a child have two Yazidi parents. With conversion to Yazidism theologically impossible, mixed marriages were strongly discouraged. Additionally, the widely-held but wholly incorrect view of the Yazidi faith as a religion of “devil-worshippers” appeared to be a powerful disincentive for members of non-Yazidi communities who wished to marry someone of the Yazidi religious group. Misunderstandings of Yazidism have underpinned cycles of persecution of this community, at least as far back as the Ottoman Empire. There has been widespread discrimination against the Yazidis throughout modern history. The historical persecution of the Yazidis by their neighbours further strengthened the community’s proscription against “marrying out” of the faith.

20. While intermarriage between the Yazidis and Arabs of Sinjar was rare, interviewees recalled many friendships and working relationships across the two communities, underlining the nuanced nature of the relationships in Sinjar prior to the attack. In its aftermath, while some individual relationships have survived, the two communities have become deeply estranged.

21. In June 2014, ISIS seized Mosul, rattling the Sinjar region that then lay in between ISIS-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria. In the months prior to the attack on Sinjar, ISIS began to take control of increasingly large areas in Syria and Iraq, culminating in sizeable offensives in August 2014. The Iraqi Kurdish forces, the Peshmerga, maintained bases and checkpoints throughout the Sinjar region and were the only security force in the region on 3 August 2014.

22. On 2 August, the day before the attack, the Yazidis of Sinjar – farmers, teachers, doctors, housewives, and school children – spent their day like any other. Within 24 hours, their lives would become unrecognisable to them. The date of 3 August 2014 would become a dividing line, demarcating when one life ended, and – for those who survived – when another, infinitely more cruel, existence began.

B. The 3 August 2014 ISIS Attack

When ISIS attacked Sinjar, they came to destroy.

Yazidi religious authority

23. In the early hours of 3 August 2014, ISIS fighters attacked Sinjar from Mosul and Tel Afar in Iraq, and Al-Shaddadi and the Tel Hamis region (Hasakah) in Syria. The attack was well organised with hundreds of ISIS fighters acting in concert with each other as they seized towns and villages on all sides of Mount Sinjar. Information documented by the Commission strongly suggests that the command centre for the operation was based in Mosul, with an important operational centre in Tel Afar.

24. As they moved into Sinjar, ISIS fighters faced little or no resistance. Many of the Peshmerga reportedly withdrew in the face of the ISIS advance, leaving much of the Sinjar region defenceless. The decision to withdraw was not effectively communicated to

10 Annex A (Map).

A/HRC/32/CRP.2

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the local population. No evacuation orders were issued and most villages were initially unaware of the collapse of the security situation.

25. As word spread that the Peshmerga had left their checkpoints, a few ad hoc groups of lightly armed, local Yazidi men mounted a very limited defence of some villages, such as Girzerik and Siba Sheikh Khedir, in an attempt to give their families and neighbours more time to escape. By daybreak, Yazidi families from hundreds of villages across Sinjar were fleeing their homes in fear and panic. They took little with them. Others were advised by Arab neighbours to stay in the villages and raise white flags over their houses.

26. By the time ISIS entered Sinjar, there were few military objectives in the region. ISIS fighters focussed their attention on capturing Yazidis. After controlling the main roads and all strategic junctions, fighters set up checkpoints and sent mobile patrols to search for fleeing Yazidi families. Within hours, Yazidis who had been unable to escape to the nearby city of Duhok found themselves encircled by armed, black-clad ISIS fighters.

27. Those who fled early enough to reach the upper plateau of Mount Sinjar were besieged by ISIS. A humanitarian crisis quickly unfolded as ISIS trapped tens of thousands of Yazidi men, women, and children in temperatures rising above 50 degrees Celsius and prevented them from accessing to water, food or medical care. On 7 August

2014, at the request of the Iraqi Government, US President Barack Obama announced

American military action to help the Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar. 11 American, Iraqi,

British, French, and Australian forces were involved in airdrops of water and other supplies to the besieged Yazidis. ISIS fighters shot at planes airdropping aid, and at helicopters attempting to evacuate the most vulnerable Yazidis.

28. Hundreds of Yazidis – including infants and young children – died on Mount Sinjar before the Syrian Kurdish forces, the YPG, were able to open a corridor from Syria to Mount Sinjar, allowing for those besieged on the mountain to be moved to safety. Together with Yazidi volunteers, they repelled ISIS attacks on the corridor, as it sought to re-establish the siege.

29. On lower ground, ISIS fighters captured thousands of Yazidis in their villages or on the roads as they fled between 3 and 5 August 2014. Almost all villages were emptied within 72 hours of the attack, with the exception of Kocho village which was not emptied until 15 August 2014. The conduct of ISIS fighters, on capturing thousands of Yazidis as they fled, cleaved closely to a set and evidently pre-determined pattern, with only minor deviations.

30. Regardless of where the Yazidi families were captured, ISIS fighters swiftly ordered the separation of males and females, with the exception of boys who had not reached puberty, 12 who were allowed to remain with their mothers. Within an hour, those who survived capture were forcibly transferred to temporary holding sites. ISIS operational commanders communicated these primary transfer locations, located within the Sinjar area and in Hasakah governorate in Syria, to their fighters and checkpoints by walkie-talkies and mobile phones. Secondary transfers were later conducted in an

11 The White House, Statement by the President, 7 August 2014. (https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-

press-office/2014/08/07/statement-president). (“The White House Statement”)

12 Whether a boy had reached puberty was assessed in various ways by ISIS fighters across Sinjar.

The fighters in Kocho village, for example, inspected Yazidi boys to see if they had any underarm hair. Fighters in other locations made snap judgments based on height and weight. In general, boys aged 12 years and above were grouped with the Yazidi men, though this was not uniformly the case.

A/HRC/32/CRP.2

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organized manner, with buses and large vehicles moving captured Yazidis to designated holding sites in Mosul, Tel Afar and Baaj, deeper inside ISIS-controlled territory.

31. In the process of capture and transfer, hundreds of ISIS fighters operating across a vast territory in the Sinjar region systematically separated Yazidis into three distinct groups: men and boys aged approximately 12 and above; women and children; and later, drawn from the pool of male children who had remained with the women, boys aged seven and above. Each group suffered distinct and systematic violations, sanctioned under ISIS’s ideological framework.

C. ISIS treatment of Yazidi men and boys aged approximately 12 and above

After we were captured, ISIS forced us to watch them beheading some of our Yazidi men. They made the men kneel in a line in the street, with their hands tied behind their backs. The ISIS fighters took knives and cut their throats.

Girl, aged 16 at capture, held for 7 months, sold once

ISIS ordered everyone from Kocho to go to the school. Men and boys over 10 years were on the ground floor, while women and children were on the upper floor. The fighters took the men and boys away. After ISIS took them, no men from the village ever returned. My husband was with them.”

Woman, held for 15 months, sold five times

32. Following the capture of Yazidi families by ISIS fighters, ISIS swiftly separated men and boys who had reached puberty from women and other children. In villages south of Mount Sinjar, men and older boys were immediately separated upon capture. In the northern villages, Yazidi families were first transferred to main checkpoints and towns, such as Khanasour and Sinouni, before they were separated.

33. Following this separation, ISIS fighters summarily executed men and older boys who refused to convert to Islam. Men from rural Yazidi villages who fled with their personal firearms in their belongings were also executed when the weapons were discovered in their possession. Most of those killed were executed by gunshots to the head; others had their throats cut. ISIS fighters carried out executions of male Yazidis in the streets of towns and villages, at makeshift checkpoints, on roadsides as well as on the lower sections of the roads ascending Mount Sinjar. Other captives, including family members, were often forced to witness the killings.

34. ISIS fighters sometimes executed captured Yazidi men and older boys just out of sight of the women and children. Some of those left behind reported hearing gunfire while others saw fighters returning with bloodstains on their clothing. The Yazidi men were not heard from again. Some ISIS fighters tormented survivors by telling evident untruths, including that ISIS had released the men and boys to go to Mount Sinjar.

35. The bodies of those killed on capture were often left in situ. Yazidis, captured and forcibly transferred to Mosul and Tel Afar in the days following the attack, described being driven along roads, the sides of which were littered with corpses.

36. While most killings were of groups of between two and twenty men and boys, there are two clearly documented cases of larger mass killings: those of the men and boys of Kocho and Qani villages. The OHCHR Iraq Report determined that ISIS executed

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hundreds of men in Kocho, and about 80 men in Qani.13 Interviews conducted by the

Commission with Yazidi women and girls, taken from these villages and later transferred into Syria, support these findings.

37. Men and older boys who were forcibly converted to Islam became ISIS captives. Separated from women and children, they were quickly transferred to sites in Tel Afar, Mosul, and Baaj where they were later forced to work, labouring on construction projects, digging trenches, cleaning streets, and looking after cattle. They were also forced to pray, grow their beards and hair, and follow other religious dicta as interpreted and promulgated by the terrorist group. Those who attempted to escape were executed upon capture.

38. By late August or early September 2014, ISIS began to move groups of “converted” Yazidi families to Qasr Maharab and Qasil Qio villages, located just outside Tel Afar. The villages’ original inhabitants, mainly from a Shiite community, had fled months earlier when ISIS gained control of the region. Some Yazidis were held briefly in Kocho village before being moved to the two villages. Those held in Kocho described a strong stench of rotting corpses pervading the village.

39. ISIS recorded videos on their phones of “converted” Yazidi men and boys urging their relatives to convert. These videos were shown to the men’s families at holding sites in Tel Afar and Badoush prison. Families who converted were reunited in Qasr Maharab. Although this was not uniformly the case, women who converted but whose husbands had been killed on capture were moved (with their children, if they had them) to nearby Qasil Qio. Later, ISIS would also forcibly transfer some “converted” families to Al-Khadra neighbourhood in Tel Afar.

40. All Yazidi men and boys were required to go to mosque for prayers. In this respect, ISIS treated the “converted” Yazidi males like Muslims. The forced conversions did not, however, provide Yazidi families with any protection or equal status. Yazidis could not leave the villages and were subjected to regular counts. Anyone who tried to escape was beaten at the first attempt, and executed on the second. ISIS killed several Yazidi men in Qasr Maharab after failed escape attempts, executing them by gunshots to the head. When someone successfully escaped, members of their household were beaten. Every day, ISIS took men and boys over 12 years of age out of the villages and forced them to labour on various projects in nearby cities and towns. Those who initially refused to go were beaten. ISIS fighters regularly searched the villages and seized unmarried women and girls, as well as those who were married but had no children. Despite the feigned conversions, ISIS fighters regularly insulted the Yazidis held in Qasr Maharab, Qasil Qio and Al-Khadra, calling them “ kuffar ”, or infidels.

41. By the spring of 2015, ISIS appeared to have determined that any conversions that the Yazidis had made were false. In April or May 2015, ISIS emptied Qasr Maharab, Qasil Qio, and Al-Khadra, separating the families. While it has been possible to trace the fate of many of the women and children held there, little information is available about the fate and whereabouts of the Yazidi men and older boys after this point.

D. ISIS treatment of Yazidi women and girls aged 9 and above

Men would come and select women and girls. Women would lie and say we were older. Girls would say they were younger. We tried to make ourselves less

13 A/HRC/28/18, para 19. Similar findings were reached in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum Report, pp. 18-19.

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appealing. We would scratch ourselves and rub dirt on our faces. These things did not work.

Woman, held for 11 months, sold twice

We were registered. ISIS took our names, ages, where we came from and whether we were married or not. After that, ISIS fighters would come to select girls to go with them. The youngest girl I saw them take was about 9 years old. One girl told me that “if they try to take you, it is better that you kill yourself”.

Girl, aged 12 at capture, held for 7 months, sold four times

We were driven into Raqqah city at night and held in a building there. I was there for three weeks before I was sold. Throughout that time, ISIS fighters were coming to buy women and girls. All of us were Yazidi. I think I was sold about 15 times in all. It is hard to remember all those who bought me.

Woman, held for 12 months, sold approximately 15 times

42. After separating Yazidi women and children from their male relatives aged 12 and above, ISIS fighters immediately and forcibly transferred them between multiple holding sites. Yazidi women and children who were eventually forcibly transferred into Syria were first held at between four and six sites in Iraq.

43. The first holding site was usually located within the Sinjar region. Captives were, on average, held there for less than 24 hours, before taken against their will to Tel Afar, Mosul or Baaj. For example, women and children from Kocho and Qani villages were held at Solagh Technical Institute (at different times); those captured in and around Sinjar town or in the area of Zalelah were held at the Civil Records Office or in Branch 17, KDP Headquarters inside Sinjar town. Women and children from some villages on the north side of Mount Sinjar, including Khanasour and Sinouni villages, were taken directly to ISIS bases in Al-Houl and the Tel Hamis region in Hasakah, Syria, where they were registered before being forcibly transferred back into Iraq.

44. At the primary holding sites, ISIS fighters sorted the Yazidi women and children into different groups. Fighters separated married females from unmarried females. 14 Only girls aged eight years and under were allowed to remain with their mothers. For the most part boys were not separated from their mothers at this stage.

45. Quickly surmising that the greatest danger lay in being placed in the group of unmarried females, unmarried women and girls pretended their younger siblings or nephews or nieces were their own children. Married women who had no children to provide evidence of the marriage did likewise. In some instances, ISIS did not identify this subterfuge. Some Yazidi women and girls reported that members of Sinjar’s Arab community assisted ISIS by identifying those who were pretending to be married.

46. ISIS sometimes registered captured Yazidi women and girls at the primary holding sites. Fighters recorded the names of the women and girls, their age, the village they came from, whether they were married or not, and if they were married, how many children they had. Some women and girls reported ISIS fighters taking photographs of them,

14 In interviews, Yazidi women and men almost always used the term “girls” to mean females who were not married (and therefore presumed to be virgins) regardless of their age. Conversely, the term “woman” was used to denote a married female, again regardless of age. In this paper, the terms used are “married women”, “unmarried women” and “girls”. ‘Girls” refers to any females below the age of 18. Where specific reference is made to a girl who was married at the time of the attack, this will be stated clearly in the text.

without their headscarves. One girl, aged 18, recalled being ordered to smile and laugh while fighters photographed her. Such registration was usually also repeated at later holding sites in Tel Afar and Mosul, and for the women taken into Syria, again at the main holding site in Raqqah city.

47. The first 12 hours of capture were filled with sharply mounting terror. Many of the women and children had seen or heard their male relatives being killed by the armed ISIS fighters who now surrounded them. At the holding sites, relatives huddled together, trying to hide their adolescent daughters. ISIS fighters forced Yazidi women to give up valuables, including gold, money and mobile telephones. As the fighters did so, women rushed to write and memorize telephone numbers of relatives who, they hoped, might be in a position to assist them later.


48. One mass killing of Yazidi women has been documented and occurred at a primary holding site. In the early hours of 16 August 2014, ISIS executed older women (who were approximately 60 years and older) from Kocho at the Solagh Technical Institute, where the women and children had been forcibly transferred after the men had been killed inside Kocho village. Older women were separated and taken away by ISIS fighters, after which those left behind heard the sound of gunfire. The area has since been retaken and a mass grave holding the remains of older women has reportedly been discovered in the grounds of the Technical Institute. 15

49. ISIS usually held Yazidi women and girls at primary holding sites for less than a day before loading them on to trucks and buses and forcibly transferring them to the following secondary holding sites: multiple schools in Tel Afar; Badoush prison outside of Mosul city; Galaxy wedding hall in Mosul; and houses in Al-Arabi neighbourhood of Mosul city. Every Yazidi women or child captured by ISIS was held in one, and usually moved between two or three, of these holding sites. Iraqi ISIS fighters from Tel Afar and Mosul, operating under pseudonyms, were in direct command of these sites and also supervised the forcible transfer of Yazidi women and girls from these sites into Syria.

50. Women and children were forcibly displaced from site to site as space became available as a result of ISIS fighters’ purchasing and removing women and girls. Some transfers were motivated by security concerns. In August 2014, Yazidi captives were suddenly transferred from Badoush to schools in Tel Afar after a coalition airstrike struck a site close to the prison.

51. Each site held hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Yazidi women and children, and was surrounded by armed ISIS fighters. All were severely overcrowded. Those held at the secondary holding sites described receiving little food or water. Interviewees reported being given food with insects in it and having to drink water out of the toilets. Mothers often gave their share of food to their children. Many, particularly infants and young children, became very sick. No medical care was provided. At Badoush prison, ISIS brought in a female gynaecologist in an effort to identify single females who had falsely declared themselves to be married.

52. From the moment that Yazidi women and girls entered the holding sites, ISIS fighters came into the rooms where they were held in order to select women and girls they wished to take with them. Interviewees described feelings of abject terror on hearing footsteps in the corridor outside and keys opening the locks. Women and girls scrambled to the corners of the rooms, mothers hiding their daughters. The selection of any girl was

15 Yazda, “Mass Graves of Yazidis Killed by the Islamic State Organization or Local Affiliates On or

After August 3, 2014”, 28 January 2016, (“Yazda Mass Graves Report”) p. 10. This report identified 35 mass graves sites in the Sinjar region.

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accompanied by screaming as she was forcibly pulled from the room, with her mother and any other women who tried to keep hold of her being brutally beaten by fighters.

53. Yazidi women and girls began to scratch and bloody themselves in an attempt to make themselves unattractive to potential buyers. Some committed suicide at holding sites in Tel Afar, Mosul and in Raqqah city. At the main holding site in Raqqah city, a Yazidi girl attempted to kill herself by throwing herself from the second floor of the building. Severely injured, ISIS fighters forbade the other Yazidi captives from helping her. Some women and girls killed themselves by cutting their wrists or throats, while others hanged themselves using their headscarves.

54. While individual incidents of rape committed by ISIS fighters at the holding sites in Tel Afar and Mosul were reported, mass rape of Yazidi women and girls did not occur. This was despite the fact that hundreds of women and girls were held captive at the sites, surrounded by dozens of young, armed men. This serves to emphasize the rigid system and ideology governing ISIS’s handling of Yazidi women and girls as chattel, as well as the control it exerted over the majority of its fighters. The sexual violence, including the sexual slavery, being committed against Yazidi women and girls is tightly controlled by ISIS, occurs in a manner prescribed and authorised, and is respectful only of the property rights of those who “own” the women and girls.

55. Captured Yazidi women and girls are deemed property of ISIS and are openly termed sabaya or slaves. ISIS made eighty percent of the women and girls available to its fighters for individual purchase, the apportioning being drawn directly from religious interpretation. ISIS sells Yazidi women and girls in slave markets, or souk sabaya, or as individual purchases to fighters who come to the holding centres. In some instances, an ISIS fighter might buy a group of Yazidi females in order to take them into rural areas without slave markets where he could sell them individually at a higher price. The remaining twenty percent are held as collective property of ISIS and were distributed in groups to military bases throughout Iraq and Syria. In Syria, Yazidi females have been held at bases in Al-Shaddadi and Tel Hamis in Hasakah; Al-Bab and Minbej in Aleppo; Raqqah and Tabqa cities in Raqqah; Tadmur in Homs; and in various locations including Al-Mayadin and Konica gas fields in Dayr Az-Zawr.

56. ISIS has forcibly transferred multiple groups of between 50 and 300 Yazidi women and girls into Syria by bus for sale to its fighters there. The first corroborated account of ISIS taking Yazidi females into Syria indicated that this occurred on 17 August 2014, though it is considered likely that convoys had left earlier than this. They were taken to either or both of two locations in Raqqah city: an underground prison or security base, and/or a group of buildings densely surrounded by trees. The latter is referred to by ISIS fighters as “the farm”. Women and girls held there describe it in eerily similar ways: “I was taken to the upper floor of a building in Raqqah city. It was surrounded by trees. We were not allowed outside but when we looked out of the window, it felt like we were in a forest”.

57. Some – generally unmarried women and girls – were purchased by ISIS fighters and removed in a matter of days. Some women, often those with more than three children, might remain at the holding sites for up to four months before being sold. Yazidi women and girls were sold to individual fighters directly from the holding sites as well as in slave markets. In the last year, ISIS fighters have started to hold online slave auctions, using the encrypted Telegraph application to circulate photos of captured Yazidi women and girls, with details of their age, marital status, current location and price.

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58. In Syria, slave markets were held in “the farm” in Raqqah city, and in buildings in Al-Bab, Al-Shaddadi, Al-Mayadin and Tadmur. 16 A central committee, the Committee for the Buying and Selling of Slaves, organises the Yazidi slave markets. Where the central committee authorizes the opening of a slave market in a particular town, it devolves some of its functions to a local committee and commander. An ISIS document, released online and judged to be authentic, informed fighters were required to pre-register if they wish to attend a slave market in Homs, and explained the procedure for buying: “the bid is to be submitted in the sealed envelope at the time of purchase, and the one who wins the bid is obliged to purchase”. 17

59. A woman, sold at a slave market at “the farm” in Raqqah city, recounted, “After six days, the fighters moved us to a big white hall that was next to the river. ISIS would buy and sell girls there. There was a raised area we had to stand on. If we refused, the fighters would beat us with wooden sticks. There were maybe 200 Yazidi girls there. The youngest was between seven and nine years old. Most were quite young. They would tell us to take off our headscarves. They wanted to see our hair. Sometimes they would tell us to open our mouths so the men could check our teeth.” Another Yazidi woman was sold at a slave market in a house in Tadmur (Homs). She and other Yazidi women and girls were placed in a small room away from the ISIS fighters. When the fighter in charge of the slave market called her name, fighters entered, took off her headscarf, and escorted her into a larger room of seated ISIS fighters. She was made to “walk through the room like a catwalk”. She continued, “[I]f any of the men chose us he would raise his hand. The seller from ISIS had paper with our name and the price for us on it. They would give it to the man who raised that hand. Then he would take the woman, or women, to his car and he would go.”

60. Some Yazidi women and girls were present at their sale, and were aware of the amounts paid for them, which ranged between USD 200 and USD 1,500, depending on marital status, age, number of children, and beauty. Most were simply informed by their fighter-owner that he had bought or sold her. A Syrian fighter bought a Yazidi woman at a slave auction at “the farm” in Raqqah city in 2015. On placing her in his car, he told her “You are like a sheep. I have bought you.” He sold her seven days later to an Algerian ISIS fighter living in Aleppo governorate.

61. Yazidi females initially purchased in Iraq might also be taken into Syria with their fighter-owners, or else would be sold on from an ISIS fighter in Iraq to a fighter in Syria. Fighters who buy and sell Yazidi women and girls, as well as those who arrange the trading of them, come from all over the world. Those interviewed reported being purchased by men from Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Kazakhstan. Interviews conducted by other documentation organisations indicate that fighters from many more countries, including Sudan, Belgium, Uzbekistan, and Australia, took active part in the crimes committed against Yazidi women and girls, or were otherwise complicit in them.

62. Once ISIS sells a Yazidi woman and girl, the purchasing fighter receives complete rights of ownership and can resell, gift, or will his “slave” as he wishes. One Yazidi woman, held with her young children, recounted her purchase by an Algerian ISIS commander in northern Syria and then her being given as a gift to his nephew. Another woman carefully explained that when her fighter-owner died intestate, she reverted to

16 Al-Shaddadi and Tadmur have since been recaptured. Undoubtedly, many more slave markets exist

than are listed here.

17 Notice on buying sex slaves, Homs province, translated by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi

(http://www.aymennjawad.org/2016/01/arch ... ocuments-1)

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being the collective property of ISIS, with the local Wali charged with organising her resale.

63. In Syria, Yazidi women and girls (and any young children sold with their mothers) are held in a variety of locations, including in the fighter’s family home, alone in apartments and houses, and in makeshift shelters nearer to the ISIS frontlines or in gas fields. They are usually kept locked inside. The only exception is young boys who fighters sometimes take with them to pray in the local mosque. Yazidi women and girls are not given abayas 18 which all females over the age of 10 are obliged to wear in public in ISIS-controlled territory. This has proved to be a powerful way of preventing escapes. The few Yazidi women or girls who managed to break out of the locations where they were held were quickly caught once they were on the street without being covered.

64. While held by ISIS fighters, Yazidi women and girls over the age of nine are subjected to brutal sexual violence. Most of those interviewed reported violent daily rapes by their fighter-owners. Some were handcuffed behind their backs during the rapes while others had their hands and legs tied to the corners of the beds. Little, if anything, protects against rape. Girls as young as nine were raped, as were pregnant women. Many women and girls reported being injured as a result of the rapes, suffering bleeding, cuts, and bruising.

65. ISIS fighters threatened Yazidi women and girls, saying that any resistance on their part would be punished by gang rape. One woman, bought by an ISIS fighter from Saudi Arabia and held in a village in Aleppo governorate, stated “[H]e raped me every day that I was with him... He told me that if I did not let him do this thing to me that he would bring four or five men and they would all take turns raping me. I had no choice. I wanted to die”. Another woman, held in Minbej (Aleppo), was told by her Syrian fighter-owner that if she resisted, he would throw her off the roof of his house. Some women also reported that the fighter threatened to sell or beat their children.

66. ISIS fighters routinely beat Yazidi women and girls in their possession. One woman, who tried unsuccessfully to escape from a house in Al-Shaddadi (Hasakah) described being beaten by her Iraqi fighter-owner until her “body was black and blue”. Another woman was held with her young children in ISIS-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria for 15 months, during which time she was sold five times. She was beaten severely by a Syrian fighter in Raqqah city and later by another fighter in Al-Mayadin (Dayr Az-Zawr). One woman, held by a Saudi fighter in Raqqah city, was severely beaten as she resisted the rapes. She was still suffering from her injuries when interviewed over six months later. Wives and children of ISIS fighters sometimes participate in these beatings. Where Yazidi women and children are injured by rapes or beatings, ISIS fighters do not permit them access to medical care.

67. When women or girls try to escape and are caught and returned to their fighter-owners, the consequences are severe. One woman, held in northern Syria, reported that her fighter-owner killed several of her children after an escape attempt. The fighter continued to hold and rape her for over six months after her children’s deaths.

68. Fighters also order and supervise the gang rapes of Yazidi women and girls who try to escape. A woman, unmarried and in her early twenties, was held by ISIS for over a year during which she was sold nine times. Purchased by a fighter in Minbej, she attempted to escape. When she was caught, he dragged her back to the house where he and several other fighters raped and beat her. He sold her to an Algerian fighter based elsewhere in Syria shortly afterwards.

18 A loose fitting garment that covers the body and head.

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69. Many Yazidi women and girls reported that they were forced to take birth control, in the form of pills and injections, by their fighter-owners. One Yazidi girl, aged 18 and unmarried at the time of capture, was bought by a Libyan fighter and held in an oil field compound in Dayr Az-Zawr. She was raped daily throughout her time with this fighter, and described being forced to take pills every day. Held in ISIS captivity for over a year, she was sold eight times and raped hundreds of times, before being sold back to her family for over 20,000 US dollars.

70. Other women were given no birth control. One woman, bought by a Tunisian fighter and held and raped in Al-Bab for several months, had not been made to take any form of birth control. “It was only luck that I did not get pregnant”, she said. Held for a year, she was taken into Syria within weeks of the August 2014 attack on Sinjar and was sold between four different ISIS fighters before she was smuggled out at an unknown cost to her family. Her husband has since divorced her.

71. There was, unsurprisingly, a profound reluctance to discuss pregnancies that resulted from rapes by ISIS fighters. This is particularly so for women and girls who were no longer pregnant, in contexts where abortion is illegal. Nevertheless, those interviewed reported that such pregnancies inevitably occurred. Some Yazidi women gave birth in captivity or upon release but many appear to have given the infants away in circumstances that remain unclear. None of the birth control methods forced upon the Yazidi women and girls protected them from sexually transmitted diseases but interviewees generally refused to acknowledge this possibility.

72. ISIS fighters, and sometimes the wives of ISIS fighters, regularly force Yazidi women and girls to work in their houses. Many of those interviewed recounted being forced to be the domestic servant of the fighter and his family. Sometimes, they were also made to look after his children. When held closer to the frontlines, Yazidi women and girls are forced to cook for their respective fighter-owners and other ISIS fighters housed with or near him. One Yazidi girl, 13 years old, was held for 11 months in ISIS-controlled territory and sold multiple times. Sexually enslaved, she recounted also being forced to cook, clean and wash the clothes of her Syrian fighter-owner and his family at a house in Raqqah city.

73. ISIS fighter-owners often deny captured Yazidi women and children adequate food. Some Yazidi females were starved as punishments for escape attempts or for resisting rapes but most interviewees reported regularly having little food while held in captivity regardless of whether they were being punished or not. Many lost significant amounts of weight while held captive by ISIS. In photographs circulated by fighters in online ISIS slave auctions, some captured Yazidi women and girls appear emaciated.

74. From the moment of capture, through the various holding sites and while being bought and raped by ISIS fighters, Yazidi women and girls were verbally abused by ISIS fighters. Insults were specifically directed at their Yazidi faith, saying that they “worshipped stones” and referring to them as “dirty kuffar ” and “devil-worshippers”.

75. ISIS has overarching rules governing the resale of Yazidi women and girls: for example, they should not be sold between brothers or until they had completed their menstrual cycle (indicating they were not pregnant). It is also forbidden to sell them to non-ISIS members. All of these rules are regularly breached by ISIS fighters.

76. As the sabaya are “spoils of war” ISIS does not permit the reselling of Yazidis to non-ISIS members. Such sale is punishable by death. In effect this is meant to prevent Yazidis being sold back to their families. The financial incentives for an individual fighter to break this rule, however, are tremendous. Whereas Yazidi women and children are sold between fighters for between USD 200 and USD 1,500, they are generally sold back to their families for between USD 10,000 and 40,000.

Link to full report:

https://www.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/WopiF ... ItemOpen=1

[Anthea]

Yazidis mourn the loss of their homeland
Sandra Petersmann reports

Where can Yazidis live in the future? Their homeland Sinjar in the north of Iraq has been liberated, but the "ISIS" genocide that began on August 3, 2014 has left an indelible mark on the city

It's as if someone had taken a huge sledgehammer and beaten the hell out of it. Ruins and yet more ruins. Pulverized concrete and smashed bricks as far as the eye can see. There is hardly anything left of Sinjar which used to be the largest city in the Yazidi homeland in northern Iraq that bears the same name.

With the backing of massive US airstrikes Kurdish fighters managed to free Sinjar city from "Islamic State" (ISIS) tyranny in November 2015. It had been in ISIS hands for just over a year. But it was above all the US air raids that almost wiped out the unofficial capital of the Yazidi homeland. The fact that the liberation was followed by more Turkish air strikes has only reinforced deep-rooted fear within the Yazidi community. There is a palpable sense of a lost homeland.

Meeting the mayor

In Sinjar, time seems to have stood still. There is no trace of organized reconstruction in the town. Compare that to Mosul, only 120 kilometers (75 miles) to the west. Iraq's second city was freed from ISIS terror just a year ago, but a visible building effort is well underway. Sinjar by contrast was liberated almost three years ago. The main streets were cleared of rubble. But since then, little else has happened.

Most of the smaller settlements that surround the city are also destroyed and deserted. Herdan is one of those. On the access road to the village, four mass graves have been provisionally sealed off with flimsy green mesh fencing. Three hundred families once lived in Herdan, says village elder Hassan Khalaf. Today there are just 60. Khalaf has no idea about the whereabouts of two sons, a brother and four nephews. Are they among those buried in the mass graves? Khalaf doesn't know. He points to the junction a short distance beyond the graves that marks the end of the village. That, he says, is where IS fighters took Yazidi villagers to execute them: "They must have taken some 500 people from here."

Why hasn't there been any help for the locals? Why is nobody answering their questions? "Because we Yazidis are only fourth or fifth grade citizens of Iraq," says Fahad Hamid Omar, the acting mayor of Sinjar. "Because the people who used to be responsible for safety and security here were not interested in the people of Sinjar," he adds after a longer pause.

The stocky man with a crew cut and moustache stands on the flat roof of his official residence, his eyes gazing across the ruins. He is responsible for an estimated 3,500 families. Mayor Fahad has only been in office for a few months and is himself a Yazidi. He wears a simple uniform and repeatedly emphasizes that he himself fought against the jihadists. He often uses the inclusive "we" when he talks. We, the Yazidis of Sinjar.

Unlike his predecessor, Mahama Khalil, Fahad does not have close ties to the government of the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq. Instead, he answers to the central government in Baghdad. "We want Sinjar to be managed directly from Baghdad and no longer by the Kurds," he says. That's how it has been for the past 15 years.

The Yazidis were hostage to the developing power struggle between the powerful Kurdish clan of former president Masoud Barzani and the central government. Since the controversial referendum on Kurdish independence in September 2017, the fronts have only hardened still further.

Fahad Hamid Omar, acting mayor of Shingal, wants international protections and his own Yazidi army

"If we had belonged to Baghdad from the beginning, this would never have happened to us," says Fahad. He's referring to the extermination campaign launched by ISIS against the small ethnic-religious Yazidi minority — a genocide recognized as such by the United Nations. There is contempt in his voice for the Kurdish autonomous government in Irbil and their Peshmerga fighters. He accuses them of betrayal.

The day that changed everything

The first ISIS fighters reached Sinjar at dawn on August 3, 2014. The terror militia advanced in a convoy of armored US Humvees and other military vehicles previously captured by the Iraqi army. As recently as June of that year, the Sunni fundamentalists had conquered Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, and proclaimed their "caliphate" from there. Now they aimed to annihilate the Yazidi people — a denomination they branded as "unbelieving devil worshipers."

No one knows exactly how many Yazidis were murdered but Mayor Fahad claims that at least 15,000 are dead or missing. Around 7,000 women and children were abducted and enslaved. More than half of them are still missing.

In historic terms, this was not the first attack on the minority in Iraq. But it was probably the most far-reaching. The global Yazidi organization Yazda estimates that in August 2014 about half a million Yazidis lived in Iraq. The Sinjar region had an estimated 250,000 inhabitants; its capital about 80,000. They were mostly Yazidis, but also Muslim Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens.

Shingal resembles a ghost town

Today most Yazidis have fled Sinjar, seeking refuge in the large refugee camps around the northern Iraqi city of Dohuk. They have also fled to Kurdish areas in Syria and Turkey. A significant number managed to reach Europe, specifically Germany. Among the 31,379 Iraqis who applied for asylum in Germany in 2015, there were 15,256 Yazidis, Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees told DW. In 2016, 97,162 Iraqis sought asylum, including 37,655 Yazidis. Last year, applications from Iraqis totaled 23,605, including 11,200 Yazidis.

Caught between all fronts

In Sinjar, countless graffiti celebrating imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan serve as reminders of the "heroic fight" against ISIS. At a martyrs' cemetery on Mount Sinjar, where 10,000 Yazidis still live in tent settlements, flags with Öcalan's portrait flutter in the wind. Many of the fighters buried here lost their lives between August 2014 and November 2015.

PKK and YPG forces also pulled back when Turkey openly threatened a military invasion like the one it had launched in Syria's Afrin region. Turkey is determined to prevent Syrian and Iraqi PKK forces from controlling a contiguous territory. As things stand, Sinjar is being crushed between national and international power struggles.

Lost security

So who can the persecuted Yazidis trust after the genocide? "As long as there are thousands of competing political groups, people will not come back," says Stewan Elias as he cuts glass panes. The 24-year old used to be a teacher. That was when there were still schools in Shingal. These days he ekes out an existence repairing windows. The problem is: there are virtually no funds for the reconstruction of the city. "People just don't believe it's safe in Sinjar," says Elias. Why then did he leave the Mount Sinjar refugee camp to live in the ruined city? "Because I only have this one home."

That sentiment is echoed by Baran Kharo. At first, the young woman with a red-haired ponytail does not want to answer any questions. Her uncle's family is still in the hands of ISIS, she whispers. She says life is no longer possible in Sinjar: "There is hardly any electricity here and the water is very bad and bitter." She is afraid of the blind shells and the booby traps that nobody removes. "There are rotting bodies and bones around here, too." Nearby, two young fighters of the Hashd militia are standing guard at an intersection. "We are very scared," says Kharo.

A separate force

Officially, the presence of the Shiite militia units from southern Iraq does not worry Mayor Fahad. After all, he owes his appointment to them. It is not the central government in Baghdad, but mainly Iranian sponsored Hashd al-Shaabi fighters that are visible in Sinjar. "The ISIS has done great injustice, not only to the Yazidis but also to our Shiite brothers," he says. His main worry are the Sunni Arabs and Turkmen in the area. "Many Muslim neighbors have supported ISIS," he claims.

Fahad Hamid Omar wants international protection and his own Yazidi army. He also has a message for the German government: "If the Germans want to help us, they should do it directly instead of sending weapons and military trainers to the Kurds."

Only a few days ago, the mayor would have quite happily shot at Sunni Arab farmers who herded their cattle onto a Yazidi mass grave. "These people who helped IS to murder us are now grazing their cattle on our bones," he complains bitterly. He's even calling for the construction of a "protective wall" to separate Muslims and Yazidis.

Sinjar, it appears, is just as torn as the rest of Iraq.

https://www.dw.com/en/iraqs-yazidis-mou ... a-44908088

[Anthea]

Yazidi House opened in Aleppo

Yazidis living in Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood of Aleppo opened Yazidi House on occasion of the 4th anniversary of Shengal Genocide.

The ceremony began with a minute’s silence in memory of all the innocent Yazidis who were slaughtered or enslaved, after which speeches were delivered by Rojîn Musa on behalf of Yazidis living in Aleppo, Şêx Elî Hesen on behalf of Religious Constituents, women’s movement Kongreya Star member Hêvin Silêman and TEV-DEM (Democratic Society Movement) member Sekîne Çerkes.

Speakers congratulated the people of the region for the opening of the Yazidi House, wishing it to conduce toward strengthening co-existence.

The ribbon of the Yazidi House was cut by relatives of martyrs, after which Yazidi House Co-chair Nesrîn Gulê read a statement.

The statement said the following; “Four years have passed since the Shengal genocide. Thousands of Kurdish Yazidis are still living in refugee camps and waiting to return home. Thousands of women and children are still in ISIS captivity.

August 3, 2014 Shengal genocide will remain as a black mark on all humanity.”

[Anthea]

Fate of the Yazidis Remains Unclear Four Years After Genocide
By Jawa Alahmad

This month marks four years since the genocide of Yazidis on Mount Sinjar in Iraq, and while ISIS may have been defeated, the plight of the Yazidis remains ongoing.

In the early hours of August 3, 2014, the Yazidi inhabitants of the northern Iraqi region of Sinjar awoke to find themselves defenseless and under siege by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Abandoned by the soldiers that had protected them thus far, the Yazidis – one of Iraq’s oldest and most reserved minorities – were at the mercy of a terrorist group that considered them devil-worshipping infidels, destined to be exterminated.

Over the course of the next few hours, the Yazidis were given the impossible choice of conversion or death. With little to no hope of escape, Yazidi families were torn apart as young women and children were kidnapped and enslaved, and thousands more, mostly men and older women deemed useless, were killed. The 40,000 mostly elders and young children that did manage to escape, fled to the nearby Sinjar Mountains where the conditions were equally as harsh. They found themselves trapped as ISIS militants fired at them from one side and the merciless weather conditions, lack of medical care, food and water threatened starvation and dehydration on the other.

The Yazidis are an ethnically Kurdish minority group with a population of about 700,000, the majority of which resided in the Northern Iraqi region of Sinjar. Their unique and largely misunderstood religion pre-dates Islam, Christianity, and the Persian faith of Zoroastrianism.

The primary belief responsible for the ongoing persecution of the Yazidi faith is how they regard one of the seven angels, known as Melek Taus. In the Yazidi religion, Melek Taus, upon being instructed by God to bow to his creations, refuses and is thrown into Hell as punishment. This story strongly resembles that of Iblees (or Satan) in Islam; however, in the Yazidi faith Melek Taus repents and is forgiven by God, a belief that has given them the unshakeable label of devil-worshippers.

This month marks four years since the genocide on Mount Sinjar, and while ISIS may have been defeated, the plight of the Yazidis remains ongoing. Several thousand Yazidi women and children are still missing or unaccounted for, and hundreds of thousands more remain displaced and afraid to return home.

While the area of Sinjar was liberated in 2015, the majority of the city remains in ruins with no rebuilding plans in sight. Sinjar, which is now controlled by the Iraqi government, has become home to a dozen or so militia checkpoints.

For the ones who have returned home, as the unimaginable feat of healing begins so do new religious traditions. In April, for the first time in four years, Yazidis gathered to celebrate New Year, which they call “Sursal.” The celebrations included lighting candles, performing several religious rites and visiting shrines, all of which were acts that were formerly restricted by ISIS.

To the Yazidis, celebrating Sursal was more than just about a holiday; it is an act of preservation of their identity after yet another attempt to diminish it.

While the Yazidis have over the years remained strong and unwavering under pressure, the most recent attack on their faith and their current situation will undoubtedly incline the Yazidis to become not only more innovative in how they practice their faith, but to reassess certain religious traditions and beliefs that may no longer align with who they have become as they move forward from this tragedy.

Many Yazidis taken by ISIS and forced to convert have been allowed to re-enter the faith by rebaptism, an uncharacteristically moderate act to a notion previously unaccepted under any circumstances. However, for many more, returning home is no longer an option.

The rise of Islamic fundamentalism has forced an estimated 70,000 Yazidis – about 10 percent of the Yazidi population – to flee permanently to Europe, a move that can alter the future and fate of the religion. Since the Yazidi faith does not accept converts and disallows exogamy, these factors will undoubtedly affect the assimilation of their youth in Europe and will, in turn, threaten the continued survival of the Yazidi faith as it existed before ISIS.

Help for the Yazidis is a magnitude of a task that involves the seemingly impossible act of navigation in a country that remains war-torn, unstable, and ripe with domestic politics. A country, it should be noted, that was not friendly to the Yazidi cause before ISIS.

At its most basic, food, shelter, and medical aid is needed for the continually displaced Yazidis, especially as the cold winter months approach. Education, psychological and financial aid are equally important in the immediate future, a feat that has proven challenging as funding has slowly decreased for fear that the money will find its way to ISIS soldiers who are willing to trade kidnapped relatives for large sums.

Given the ongoing instability of the region, a swift end for the Yazidi crisis is highly unlikely. Any solution must be viewed as long-term and the aid the Yazidis receive must reflect that. Internationally, awareness for the Yazidi cause has focused mainly on prosecuting ISIS for genocide and not on the future of the Yazidi people or the facilitation of their return to their homes.

The longer the crisis lasts, the more likely that the Yazidis seek refuge in other countries, essentially weakening whatever power the minority has left in Iraq and the existence of the Yazidi religion as a whole. Whether the solution for the Yazidis includes an increase in political representation in Iraq’s government or the creation of an independent state, it must start with them returning safely to their homeland of Sinjar.

https://theglobepost.com/2018/08/06/fat ... -genocide/

[Anthea]

Genocide still haunts Iraq's Yazidis

Statistics regrettably point to the tragedy the Yazidi religious minority has been enduring, four years after it experienced genocide.

Khairi Bozani, director of Yazidi affairs at the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Ministry of Endowments, told Al-Monitor, “Around 360,000 out of 550,000 Yazidis in Iraq were displaced. During the first few days that followed the Islamic State (IS) invasion, 1,293 were killed. The genocide left behind 2,745 orphans. ISIS kidnapped 6,417 Yazidis, 3,548 of whom were women and 2,869 were men.”

He said, “After Sinjar was liberated, we counted 69 mass graves, as well as dozens of individual burial sites. We also found out that ISIS bombed 68 religious shrines.”

However, Bozani said the most serious issue was that all these incidents forced around 100,000 Yazidis to leave Iraq for good, which further diminishes the demographic weight of this minority.

As Yazidis reach a new level of frustration, a number of young people commemorated the genocide at a Yazidi mass grave in Sinjar on Aug. 3 by proclaiming the day of genocide as the date of the death of the United Nations. They buried a coffin that marked the date of the founding of the UN on Oct. 24, 1945, as the date of birth and the day of the genocide, Aug. 3, 2014, as the date of death.

Salam Haskani, one of the young people who set up the symbolic burial of the UN, told Al-Monitor, “The tragic situation of the Yazidis has failed to change for the better. It has been four years since the genocide was committed, four years since the Iraqi army was defeated and the peshmerga withdrew their forces. Still, not one official has been held accountable. Perpetrators were never punished and victims were never avenged. Sinjar remains completely destroyed. The displaced have not returned to their towns and villages, and the Yazidis continue to migrate.”

Yazidi elites also feel despair when it comes to lack of intervention on the part of the international community and the Iraqi authorities.

Kulu Abdo Suleiman, a Yazidi official in Sinjar, said the Yazidis have lost their sense of citizenship along with the belief that the state is able to protect them. They no longer feel as part of this people, he said.

Suleiman told Al-Monitor that Yazidis need to first find a way to trust other parts of Iraqi society again, as well as the state, in order for their faith in their national identity to be restored.

He mocked the stances the international community and the Iraqi authorities took against the Yazidi genocide. “If the international community had the slightest interest in following up on the Yazidi cause, instead of diverting its attention to animated movies, the Yazidi situation would have changed long ago. If members of the international community, namely the US, showed as much interest in us as they do boxing rings, no tragedy would have occurred, or at least a swift intervention could have taken place,” Suleiman said TRUE

Citizens commemorated the genocide in different areas around Iraq. Most importantly, a conference was held by Yazda on Aug. 3 in Baghdad, headed by President Fuad Masum.

Genocide survivor Farida Abbas, who gave a speech at the conference, said, “Our demands focus on unconditional justice.” She told Al-Monitor that justice overrides reconciliation. “We cannot agree to reconcile or make peace with those who killed our children and put our lives to waste.”

Also, an academic conference involving experts from several countries began in Erbil on Aug. 8. It is hosted by RUDAW, a research and media institute in Kurdistan.

Hasso Hormi, head of the Free Yezidi Foundation in the Netherlands, who participated in the conference, told Al-Monitor, “This will not be a mere occasion to commemorate the Yazidi genocide; simply because this genocide is still ongoing. Yazidi girls are still under ISIS’ grip and the children who were kidnapped by the group are still forcibly kept away from their community, being transformed into human suicide bombs.”

Hormi said that top legal, political and cultural means should be considered to prevent a recurrence. The best way to do so, he said, is to internationalize the Yazidi cause by forming an anti-genocide committee with the help of experts and researchers participating in the conference from Ireland, Armenia, India, Bosnia, the Netherlands and many other parts of the world.

Idan Barir, a researcher specializing in Yazidi affairs, said that perhaps the multiple commemorative events held inside and outside of Iraq reflect a division among Yazidis, who failed to hold a unified, central conference in Iraq.

He said it shows how the central government and the KRG have different views regarding the Yazidi cause and the dispute over their areas, namely Sinjar.

However, Yazidi activist Mirza Dinnayi said he believes holding several conferences is a good thing, as it shows that the Yazidi elites, activists and associations are taking matters into their own hands instead of waiting around for parties to take the initiative.

“The positive aspect about all this is that most events had nothing to do with parties. The majority were organized by leaders from the Yazidi civil society,” he said.

Dinnayi said these events represent a new phase for Yazidis. After the war to liberate Mosul, Sinjar and other parts of Iraq from ISIS, the Yazidis are embarking on a new phase that requires them to emphasize historical events so that victims will never be forgotten, he said. This is particularly true amid concerns that perpetrators will not be subject to a transitional justice process and will not be brought to court. This specifically requires human rights defenders to actively seek to consolidate this genocide in the collective memory.

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/origin ... ities.html

[Anthea]

Religious school opens for Shengal's children

Click on photos to enlarge


A religious school has been opened in Shengal for Yazidi children rescued from ISIS gangs. The children will learn how to read and write, and about the Yazidi faith.



The school will be open two days a week, Saturdays and Mondays, and will have 153 students, who will also receive special psychological support.



Teacher Shiyar Hesen spoke about the school and said it was opened as part of the Qaniya Spi School. Hesen said ISIS gangs imposed harmful ideas on the children: “We want to save the children from these ideas. We are working to increase the number of these schools.”



Student Semer Mamî said they learn about the Yazidi faith in the school and added that their goal is to know their religion better.

[Anthea]

3,000 Yazidis captured by Daesh still missing

An official at the Endowments and Religious Affairs Ministry of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government says more than 3,000 members of Yazidi minority remain unaccounted for since Daesh militants overran their hometowns in northern Iraq back in 2014.

“The fate of 3,102 Yazidis remain unknown since Daesh terrorists attacked our towns and cities in mid-2014,” Khairi Bozarni said at a conference devoted to the “Yazidi Genocide” in the Kurdish capital city of Erbil on Wednesday.

Bozarni added that more than 2,500 Yazidi Kurds lost their lives at the hands of Daesh, while another 6,000 – mostly women and children – were abducted.

He noted that 66 places of worship for Yazidis have also been desecrated or destroyed by the terror group.

“What’s more, more than 100,000 Yazidis have fled Kurdistan region and Iraq in general since the summer of 2014,” Bozarni said.

He went on to say that Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has secured the release of more than 2,000 abducted Yazidis.

Bozarni also called on the international community as well as the central government in Baghdad to discover the fate of missing Yazidis as soon as possible.

Earlier this year, Iraqi security forces found a mass grave in the northern province of Nineveh, which contained the bodies of dozens of Yazidis believed to have been executed by Daesh terrorists when they were in control of an area there.

A security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Arabic-language al-Etejah television network that federal police forces had made the discovery in the town of Qahtaniyah, located about 100 kilometers from Mosul, and that the mass grave contained the bodies of 70 people.

He added that security forces had handed over all the bodies to the forensic department in Mosul to be identified and returned to their relatives.

Back in August 2014, Daesh terrorists overran the town of Sinjar, killing, raping, and enslaving large numbers of Yazidi Kurds.

The region was recaptured in November 2015, during an operation by Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Yazidi fighters.

The Office of Kidnapped Affairs in the northern Iraqi city of Dohuk said last year that around 3,500 Yazidi Kurds were still being held captive by Daesh, adding that a large proportion of the abductees were women and children.

The Endowments and Religious Affairs Ministry of Kurdistan Regional Government announced last August that Daesh’s genocide against Yazidis had forced nearly 360,000 members of the minority to flee their hometowns, and another 90,000 to leave Iraq and take refuge in other countries.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180 ... l-missing/

[Anthea]

Yazidi former sex slave came face-to-face with her ISIS captor in German street

Yazidi former sex slave tells how she came face-to-face with her ISIS captor in a German street, who told her: 'I know where you live' - but police did nothing because he is also a 'refugee'

Ashwaq Ta'lo was kidnapped by ISIS aged 15 with her family and taken to Syria
She saw her captor Abu Humam on two separate occasions on German streets
Police identified the man with CCTV but told her there was nothing they could do
Ashwaq has now fled the country after the terrifying encounter with Abu Humam

A former Yazidi sex slave came face-to-face with her ISIS captor after escaping captivity to flee to Germany but was told that police could do nothing because he was a refugee, it has been claimed.

Ashwaq Ta'lo was kidnapped by ISIS in August 2014, aged 15, and was kept in captivity by the jihadist man for three months but escaped and made her way to Europe.

Speaking in a Facebook video, she said she had seen the man, Abu Humam, in 2016 and then again earlier this year in Schwäbisch Gmünd in south-western Germany.

She told police and asylum officials about the encounter and although they identified the man from CCTV they said there was nothing they could do because the man was also registered as a refugee.

Ashwaq was reportedly taken into Syria with 65 members of her wider family and was sold to Abu Human, a Syrian ISIS member, for $100.

After being abused and forced to convert to Islam she walked 14 hours by herself to flee from captivity before she claimed asylum in Germany.

But she has now fled the country after the terrifying encounter with the man who had enslaved her.

She said in a video she had pretended to be Turkish after he had spoken to her in German and Arabic and told her: 'I know where you live'.

'I was so scared, I could barely talk. I thought that in Germany it doesn't matter what I do. Nobody cares. I thought it's over for me.

'He started speaking in German, asking if I'm Ashwaq or not. I said no, then he started speaking Arabic.

'I continuously replied in German, saying I don't speak Arabic. I pretended to be Turkish, saying I only speak Turkish and German.

Ashwaq Ta'lo (pictured in a Facebook video) said she met her ISIS captor after fleeing to Germany following three months of captivity and sexual slavery in Syria

'He then said: 'I know that you've lived in Germany since 2015. I know that you live with your mother and your brother.'

'He even told me my own address. In short, he knew about my whole life.'

Ashwaq said many Yazidi girls who had fled to Europe had later encountered the men who had put them in captivity.

She said she had a friend in nearby Stuttgart who had also seen her former captor.

Ashwaq thanked her hosts in Germany, saying: 'Apart from that, I thank all Germans. I've been in school for three years and I've learned so much. I thank you all.'

The Yazidis, a Kurdish ethnic group, have suffered massacres and oppression for generations and the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq has been under siege from ISIS since 2014.

Speaking in a Facebook video (pictured) she said she had gone to the police after meeting her captor but was told nothing could be done because he was also regarded as a refugee

The UN has declared the killing of the Yazidi people by ISIS as genocide with many women raped by jihadi fighters.

Some 7,000 Yazidi women and girls were forced into sexual slavery when the militia took over the community’s heartland in Sinjar, northern Iraq, and slaughtered 5,000 people.

Earlier this year a German intelligence chief warned of the 'massive danger' posed by women and children returning 'brainwashed' from fighting with ISIS.

Hans-Georg Maassen said in February that Germany should consider repealing laws restricting surveillance of minors under the age of 14 to prepare for the increased risk of attacks by children as young as nine.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... treet.html

[Anthea]

KNK: Turkish attack on Shengal a continuation of ISIS massacre

“The Turkish state and its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have, since the beginning of this crisis, supported ISIS and other jihadist groups in the region, and continue to do so today.”

Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) Executive Council released a statement about Wednesday’s air strikes by the Turkish army on Shengal.

The statement reads as follows;

“The Turkish state’s hostility towards the Kurdish people and the Yazidi people continues, and their campaign of violent attacks persists. Yesterday, on 15 August 2018, Turkish warplanes bombed the Sinjar region of Iraq and killed and injured many Yazidis.

We strongly condemn this abhorrent and inhumane attack by the Turkish state.

The Yazidi city of Sinjar was occupied by the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist organization on 3 August 2014, as ISIS overran much of northern Iraq. After this invasion and brutal occupation, hundreds of thousands of Yazidi people were displaced from their homes, and thousands of them were massacred and buried in mass graves. Additionally, thousands of Yazidi women were taken as slaves by ISIS and sold in markets, with thousands of these women still unaccounted for.

One of the massacres perpetrated by ISIS took place in the village of Kojo, south of Sinjar city in the Sinjar district. Following the occupation of Kojo village on 14 August 2014 by ISIS terrorists, more than 400 Yazidis were killed, and hundreds of women and children were kidnapped – and, at present, 500 women from this village remain missing. On the occasion of the 4th anniversary of the massacre, a mass memorial ceremony was held yesterday in the village of Kojo. A convoy returning from this commemoration ceremony was attacked by Turkish warplanes, and many people lost their lives and were wounded. Amongst those lost in this attack was the prominent Yazidi leader Zeki Shingali (Ismail Ozden). Zeki Shingali, who had not left the Sinjar region since 2014, became a leader of the Yazidis and served his people bravely.

The Turkish state and its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have, since the beginning of this crisis, supported ISIS and other jihadist groups in the region, and continue to do so today. They supported the ISIS terrorist organization both in Sinjar and Kobani. The Turkish state has once again demonstrated its policy of hostility and its aim to massacre the Yazidis with yesterday’s attack. Indeed, yesterday’s attack is a continuation of the massacres perpetrated by ISIS in 2014.

Sinjar is 150 kilometers away from the Turkish border. With this attack, Turkey has violated international humanitarian law and universal norms. The Turkish state has committed a crime against humanity. The people of Sinjar, our people of the Yazidis faith, are faced yet again with the threat of massacre and genocide.

We call upon all international organisations, primarily the United Nations and the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, to oppose the attacks of the Turkish state and to stand in solidarity with our Yazidi people.”

[Anthea]

People of Shengal protest against Turkish attack

Masses gathered in Shengal to protest Turkish aerial bombardment that targeted their land on Wednesday

Thousands of residents of Shengal town in South Kurdistan staged a demonstration under the lead of Shengal Democratic Autonomous Assembly in protest at the genocidal attacks of the Turkish state.

Large number of civilians as well as representatives of the political parties, organizations and institutions in Shengal joined a march which started from Sinune People’s Assembly and continued until the Sinune main road.

Photos of Shengal Yazidi Coordination and KCK Executive Council Member Zeki Şengali, who was martyred in Wednesday’s attack, and a huge banner reading “Attack on Zeki Şengalî is the continuation of the genocide against Yazidi (Êzidî) society” was held by the people.

Following the march, Shengal Democratic Autonomous Assembly Co-chair Riham Hiço read a press release which said the following:

“As is known, the Yazidi society was subjected to a great massacre by ISIS gangs before the eyes of everyone in August of 2014. Today, that massacre has been repeated.

The attacks carried out Wednesday afternoon targeted Shengal Yazidi Coordination member Mam (Uncle) Zeki resulted in his martyrdom. We offer our condolences to Mam Zeki’s family and all the Yazidi society.

Mam Zeki dedicated his whole life to serving the Yazidi society. He relentlessly worked in four parts of Kurdistan and in Êzidxan (Yazidi land) to make sure the Yazidi people gain their rights and develop autonomy.

We firstly call on the Iraqi state to shed light on these attacks which have been carried out in a territory under their control. For this reason, they must provide the Yazidi society with satisfactory information.

We also call on the United Nations, international institutions and establishments to not remain silent on the attacks against the Yazidi community and to uphold their own laws. We demand that Shengal airspace be closed for aircrafts.

We ask the Yazidi community and their friends to not remain silent in the face of these unjust and unlawful attacks, and to take to the streets uninterruptedly as this aggression is a continuation of the 73rd genocide against the Yazidi people and aims at destroying the Yazidi community.”