’Our search for the missing continues’: SDF Commander-in-Chief on sixth anniversary of Shengal massacre

(North Press) – Mazloum Abdi, the Commander-in-Chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces, said on Monday that efforts to search for missing Yezidis are still ongoing. Abdi's statement came on the sixth anniversary of the Shengal (Sinjar) massacre, during which thousands of members of the Kurdish-speaking Yezidi religious minority were abducted and murdered by the Islamic State (ISIS).

Abdi tweeted in Kurdish that "So that a masaacre will not happen again, Shengal must have a constitutional autonomous administration."

"We remember the thousands of people who died in the Shengal genocide and those who were martyred defending it, and we support the rendition of justice," he added.

Yezidi sources say that during the attacks of August 3, 2014, ISIS destroyed more than 70 religious shrines in Shengal, killing hundreds of civilians and burying them in more than 80 mass graves.

ISIS also kidnapped more than 6,000 Yezidis during its attacks, the fates of more than half of which are still unknown, according to UN statistics.

The Syrian Democratic Forces were able to free hundreds of abducted women and children during several military campaigns against ISIS in northern and eastern Syria, reuniting them with their families through the Yazidi House in Hasakah.