Five years after the genocide, the fate of more than 2,000 Yazidi remains unknown
Baghdad – Ziad Ismail – North-Press Agency
Five years have passed since the Yazidi genocide took place, while more than two thousand Yazidi citizens are still kidnapped by the Islamic State group, as well as thousands of them are still in the camps without being able to return to their areas.
The Nineveh plains and Sinjar are the original home of the Yazidis, with a population of about 550,000 people.
Hala Safile, 23 year-old-girl, from Sinjar district of Nineveh province, on 3 August 2014, was kidnapped by Islamic State group. Three years later she managed to escape the terrorist group’s clutches, while their parents and her sister remained in the hands of Islamic State.
Hala’s only demand is to liberate her family and return home to live together; in an interview with North-Press she says, “I do not know anything about my family, I Know nothing about their fate today,” she adds, “ISIS militants were training those who could carry weapons, teaching them how to shoot with the PKC machine gun and with pistols, and they were washing those trainees’ brains and teaching them harshness.”
Saeb Khadr, a member of the Iraqi Council of Representatives on the Yazidi share, in his interview with North-Press he said, “Politicians and leaders must keep their conflicts away from the areas of Yazidis, especially those conflicts that are plotted abroad.”
“The abductees must be liberated and our destroyed areas must be rebuilt, as well as the return of displaced people to their houses and their areas should be administered by a strong and powerful administration,” Saeb said.
For her part, the civil activist Dr. Nagham Nozad, who provided assistance to the IDPs in camps, said, “The genocide still continues, because thousands of women and children are still in the hands of ISIS, who sells and buys them as slaves, in addition to teaching children cruelty and criminality.”
She continued calling for the liberation of abducted Yazidis men, women and children , “On the other hand, thousands of Yazidis are still living under tents as displaced and lacking the most basic elements of life.”
According to the latest statistics from the Office for Yazidi Abductees’ Affairs, the number of those abducted was 6.714, of whom 3.500 were females and 2.869 were males. While those released from the grip of Islamic State (IS) were 3,509, including 1,192 women, 337 men, and 1,033 little girls and 947 little boys.
The number of those who are still disappeared is 2,908, including 1,332 women and 1,585 men.
Concerning the number of IDPs, according to the statistics released by the Yazidi Abductees’ Affairs, since 2014 when the Islamic State group began to take control over Yazidis’ areas, reached to 350 thousand IDPs toward the Kurdistan Region, and many of them have sought refuge to the European countries.
With the control of Islamic State in 2014, about 1,293 Yazidis were killed, and as a result of the war against ISIS, the number of orphans reached 2,745, while 80 mass graves and dozens of individual graves were found, and 68 religious shrines were bombed as well.
Nearly 100 Yazidi took refuge outside the country.