Yezidi official demands international community recognize massacre
HASAKAH, Syria (North Press) – The international community is taking “timid steps” regarding the recognition of what happened in Shingal (Sinjar) in 2014 as an ethnic genocide, said Farouq Tozo, the co-chair of the Yezidi House in the Jazira region, northeast Syria, on Tuesday.
August 3 marks the 7th anniversary of the ISIS attack on Shingal area, killing and kidnapping thousands of Yezidis in one of the most heinous crimes of the twenty-first century.
Yesterday, in a new toll of Yezidi prisoners, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq-based Office for the Rescue of Yezidi Kidnapped documented the kidnapping of 6,417 Yezidis in the events of August 2014, the fate of 2,763 of them is still unknown.
Tozo told North Press that they had recently noticed “timid steps” in terms of recognizing the Yezidi genocide, stressing the need for all parliaments of the world to recognize this genocide.
“ISIS killed huge numbers of Yezidis and practiced sexual slavery, in addition to brainwashing children,” Tozo added.
The Yezidi House is an umbrella organization of Yezidi organizations in northeast Syria which aims at documenting Yezidi culture and customs, in addition to assisting in returning the prisoners and the kidnapped to their families in Sinjar in coordination with the official authorities of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).
Along with women and children, ISIS kidnapped a large number of men, according to Tozo, who were “executed in a way that ISIS enjoyed.”
“When liberating the prisoners and the kidnapped, we noticed the absence of elderly people among them. In short, ISIS could not influence them, so it executed them,” he added.
The official of the Yezidi House revealed that they have managed to free 410 Yezidi women and children in various ways so far.
Yesterday evening, activists of social media launched a Hashtag campaign calling for international recognition of what happened in Sinjar in 2014 as an ethnic genocide against the Yezidi Kurds.
Tozo believed that recognizing the Autonomous Administration of Shingal and providing international protection for the Yezidis in their areas will prevent such massacres to happen again.