By Nalin Ali
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Laila Ibrahim, the Co-chair of the Yazidi House in al-Jazira Region (Hasakah Governorate), said on Thursday that the British government’s recognition of “acts of genocide” by the Islamic State (ISIS) against the Yazidis in Sinjar (Shengal), northern Iraq, is not enough.
The Yezidi House, which is a civil non-governmental organization, works to return the liberated prisoners and kidnapped people in Syria to their families in coordination with the official authorities of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).
On August 3, 2014, ISIS stormed Shengal, where a majority of the Yazidi minority live. The extremist organization killed and persecuted Yazidis during its reign over the area between 2014 and 2017.
In 2017, Iraq declared the defeat of the organization, and to this day dead bodies of ISIS’ brutality are being retrieved from mass graves in Shengal. More than 2,700 people are still reported as missing, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Ibrahim added in an interview with North Press, “We thank the British government for classifying ISIS practices against the Yazidis in Shengal as a genocide,” describing the recognition as “good but not enough.”
Genocide
Two days ago, the British government acknowledged that Yazidis in Shengal were subjected to “acts of genocide” by ISIS in 2014, according to a statement by the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
Who are the Yazidis?
The Yazidis are an ethnic and religious minority who speak Kurdish and were concentrated in the Shengal region, where ISIS members carried out horrific acts of violence against them. They killed hundreds of their men and children, kidnapped their women and took them as slaves and sexually enslaved them.
This minority also faced persecution by the Ottoman Sultanate in the early 20th century, and at the hands of the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein who forced, during his rule of the country between 1979 and 2003, thousands of Yazidi families to flee abroad.
Ibrahim explained that what happened to the Yazidi community “was not easy”, as all the residents of the region were killed or displaced from their territories. Moreover, there are still a significant number of them who have been missing for years.
“The UK has today formally acknowledged that acts of genocide were committed against the Yazidi people by Daesh [ISIS] in 2014,” the British statement said.
Tariq Ahmad, UK’s Minister of State for Middle East Affairs, North Africa, South Asia and United Nations, said in a statement, “The Yazidi population suffered immensely at the hands of Daesh nine years ago, and the repercussions are still felt to this day.”
“Justice and accountability are key for those whose lives have been devastated,” he added.
In November 2021, a regional court in Frankfurt, Germany, sentenced an Iraqi ISIS affiliate named Taha al-Jumailly to life imprisonment over the death of a 5-year-old Yazidi girl he had purchased as a slave and then chained up in the hot sun to die from thirst in Fallujah, Iraq. The case marked the first conviction of an ISIS member for acts of genocide.
On January 19, 2023, Germany’s federal parliament, the Bundestag, officially recognized the 2014 massacre against Yazidis as a “genocide.” Human rights organizations hailed the decision as “historic.”
According to the Genocide Convention, genocide is prohibited in both times of peace and war. The convention defines a set of crimes as constituting a genocide, indicating that they are “committed with an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”
Meanwhile, the Yazidi House called on European countries, the United Nations and human rights organizations to give guarantees to the Yazidi community to return to Shengal, noting that there is a large number of Yazidis who have been displaced to areas in northeastern Syria, while some have emigrated abroad.
Ibrahim, the co-chair of the House, appealed the public, concerned parties, and international organizations to acknowledge the genocide that occurred in Shengal and to give more attention to the plight of the Yazidis.
Bassel Abdi, a Syrian Yazidi lawyer, told North Press that the British government’s recognition of the Yazidi genocide is a “historic step” and a landmark towards supporting the Yazidi community. He added that steps that follow this process are very important for the future of the local community in Shengal, as well as in the displaced camps.
He noted that “this recognition is a warning on note that impunity is not assumed for those who commit heinous crimes, namely genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity,” hoping that justice will prevail.
Nine years after the genocide, Yazidis continue to suffer from its devastating effects, both at the individual and community levels. Thousands of abducted women are still missing or held captive by ISIS, while hundreds of thousands of displaced individuals live in camps in difficult conditions. The return of Yazidis to Shengal is limited due to a lack of security and services, as well as the continuous threat posed by ISIS.
According to the lawyer, Yazidis also encounter social, cultural, and religious challenges as a result of the horrific experiences they have endured, which have greatly impacted their identity.
Abdi has called on the international community to enact a law protecting the Yazidi minority from the ongoing threat of extinction, given that it has suffered 73 genocides throughout history, the most recent of which was the one carried out by ISIS.
Based on the statistics from the General Directorate of Yazidi Affairs of the Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), ISIS’ reign in Iraq between 2014 and 2017 resulted in the death of 1,280 Yazidis, 2,300 children being orphaned, and the destruction of around 70 Yazidi shrines. During that time, around 6,400 Yazidis were abducted, with only about half of them being rescued or managing to escape.
After those acts of violence, about 100,000 Yazidis emigrated from Iraq to Europe, the United States, Australia and Canada, according to the United Nations. Yazidi activist and 2018 Nobel peace prize laureate Nadia Murad was one of those who fled to Germany. She was arrested, raped and forced to marry an ISIS member before she managed to escape.
Evidence
In May 2021, a UN investigation team said it got “clear and convincing evidence on ISIS committing a genocide against the Yazidis.
Six months later, a German court became the first in the world to consider crimes committed against minorities as a genocide.
Germany’s official recognition followed similar decisions in Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Najbeer Haitham, a member of the Yazidi Union in Terbespiye (al-Qahtaniyah), northeastern Syria, has called for the formation of a committee to search for the individuals who have been missing since the genocide in Shengal, as well as the need to prosecute the ISIS members who participated in the massacre.