QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Early on December 16, the Yazidi community was preparing to celebrate the Yazidi Feast of Ezi marking the break of a three-day fasting religious ritual, they were appalled by footage showing their graves in Afrin’s village of Basoufan desecrated and vandalized.
When the villagers of Basoufan early in the morning went to visit their family graves, they discovered that the cemetery had been vandalized and desecrated.
Basoufan used to be the largest Yazidi settlement in Afrin. An indication that signifies religious tolerance, the village that lies some 5 km to the east of the Cathedral of St. Simeon Stylites in the northern countryside of Aleppo, was home to nearly 3.500 Yazidis in 2011.
The Three-Day Fast is observed by all Yazidis around the world. Ezi Day (Roja Ezi in Kurdish) is an annual religious festivity that falls on the first Friday after December 13. Thus, eventually, the three days of fasting fall on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
However, vandalism, destruction, and desecration of religious sites are not strange to Afrin; it has been the real policy in the Kurdish region since the very day of its occupation.
Afrin has been under the control of Turkey and the armed opposition factions, known as the Syrian National Army (SNA), since 2018 following the so-called military operation “Olive Branch” against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) under the pretext of preserving “Turkey’s national security”.
The operation caused the displacement of about 300.000 of the original inhabitants of the Kurds of Afrin who have been taking shelter in 42 villages and five camps in the Shahba region since then.
Mosques have been built in the Yazidi villages. The Yazidis themselves are forbidden from practicing their rituals freely.
Human rights violations and abuses by SNA factions, jihadists, and radical groups affiliated with Turkish forces are committed on regular bases against the original people of Afrin.
Turkey wants to create or rather complete its alleged “security belt” beneath its southern border in northern Syria known otherwise as Rojava. By settling newcomers in the Kurdish areas such as Afrin, Turkey wants to erase a history that goes thousands of years deep in antiquity.
President of the International Religious Freedom Secretariat and former head of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), Nadine Maenza told North Press in a WhatsApp call: “Once again, we are seeing Turkish-backed Islamist militias target Yazidis in Afrin as well as in other areas that Turkey invaded and occupied in 2018 and 2019.”
With roots found in Mithraism and Mazdaism, the Yazidi religious mythology differs immensely from that of Islam and Christianity in the sense it is a non-missionary sect.
“Just like ISIS, they have a special hatred for the Yazidi community. Why else would they destroy and vandalize tombs in a cemetery, especially during the Yazidi Feast of Êzî?” Maenza said.
Since antiquity, Muslims, Alawites, Turkmen, Armenians, Christians, Kurds, Arabs, and Yazidis lived on peaceful terms in that spectacular spot of northwest Syria.
In 2012, Afrin fell under the control of the Kurdish YPG and Women Protection Units (YPJ). With the egalitarian system of the Autonomous Administration and its co-presidency, the Yazidis gained prominence and enjoyed unprecedented freedom in an oasis of religious tolerance. Relatively, the people of Afrin were spared from acts of the Islamic State (ISIS) similar to ones committed in Sinjar (Shengal) in northern Iraq. However, that freedom-marked religious oasis is going to be curtailed soon.
There were 58 Yazidi villages in Afrin at the onset of the 20th century. Prior to 2011, there were nearly 60.000 Yazidis in Afrin with 22 villages being co-habited by other communities, five of these were purely Yazidis. These were Bafloun, Qibar, Qatmeh, Basoufan, and Shadeira. However, that bond has been unraveling ever since.
Afrin Yazidis have been a double target for extremist groups embracing Islamist ideology; they are targeted for being Kurdish by racist Arab fighters and for being “infidels” by radical Islamists. This reflects, though in part the status of the affair in Afrin.
Co-chair of Afrin Judiciary Council, Suleiman Jaafar, told North Press “Reports signifying those remaining are mocked by mercenaries and they are not allowed to practice freely their religious rituals and activities being dubbed as atheists and infidels among other things.”
Jaafar, a Yazidi, said whatever pertains to Yazidism in Afrin has been destroyed. However, the current situation of Afrin Yazidis is a bleak one; with precise figures lacking, it is estimated that some 1.500 Yazidis – mostly elderly people – remain living in Afrin.
Amid this gloomy reality, both Maenza and Jaafar shared a similar idea that it should be brought to a halt and the international community must have a say.