Death threats by Turkish-backed armed groups against Yazidi people
Aleppo – North-Press Agency
Zain al-Abidin Hussein
In a poll conducted by North-Press, Officials in the Yazidi Kurdish House in Aleppo, expressed their opinions regarding the Turkish military invasion in northeastern Syria, saying that Turkey has been a neighbor of the Islamic State terrorist group (ISIS) for years, without considering it as a threat to its national security, rather, Turkey has helped them. Turkey now is invading the regions of northeastern Syria under the pretext of its national security.
They also asserted that the armed opposition groups used by Turkey in its invasion, have committed great violations against the Yazidis, and destroyed many of their monuments when they attacked and occupied the region of Afrin last year.
Hisham Ahmad, the co-chair of the Yazidi House in Aleppo, said that Turkey's justification of invading northeastern Syria is clear to everyone, as the national security cover no longer works.
He added that a large proportion of people used by Turkey in its attack on northeastern Syria, were ISIS members, and a number of them had attacked the district of Shingal (Sinjar), "and their hands are stained with the blood of Yazidis and with the abduction of many Yazidi women," he said.
"After their occupation of Afrin, many Yazidis were forcibly converted to Islam as many of their shrines were destroyed," he said.
According to Ahmad, they fear that the Yazidis in northeastern Syria would be massacred because there are many Yazidi villages on the Syrian-Turkish border. He justified his fears that "Muhammad Army of Turkey, came to kill infidels and atheists, as they were saying," he said.
Moreover, he called on the United Nations and institutions defending religious diversity and religious minorities, to put an end to abuses by the Turkish military and its affiliates.
Rania Jaafar, the coordinator of Yazidi women's affairs, said that the Yazidi religion was subjected to many genocides during the Ottoman rule, which tried to erase Yazidi customs, traditions and culture.
She continued that Turkey is aiming at the same thing, by combating minorities and erasing the Yazidi religion. It targets all different religions and beliefs, and this's why the Yazidi villages on the Syrian-Turkish border have witnessed a great wave of displacement, for fears of a repeat of Shingal catastrophe.
She added that during the era of the Autonomous Administration, they opened many centers and had several activities, while Turkey and its affiliated armed opposition groups destroyed Yazidi landmarks and shrines, when they attacked Afrin region and entered the Yazidi villages.
Furthermore, they imposed Islamic dress on Yazidi women and forced them to enter the Islamic mosques to pray, and established mosques in the villages of Paflon, Faqira, and Yazidi Basofan, in order to change their religious features.