Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

[Anthea]

Rudaw

Bodies of Yezidi relatives drowned in Aegean Sea to be returned home

The bodies of 45 migrants who drowned off the Turkish coast Saturday on their way to Greece are to be repatriated to the Kurdistan Region, an Iraqi immigration official said.

At least 45 migrants believed to be Yezidis drowned in the Aegean Sea trying to reach Greece. Among them were women and children.

Amanj Abdullah of the Iraqi Federation of Refugees told Rudaw that the bodies have been transferred to morgues in Greece.

“In coordination with the Iraqi embassy in Greece, we will repatriate the bodies to the Kurdistan region," said Abdullah.

Many Kurdish Yezidis fled their homes last year when their region was attacked by Islamic State (ISIS) militants while many others have sought shelter in refugee camps in the Kurdistan Region.

Maiser Haji Salih, a former mayor of Shingal confirmed to Rudaw that the drowned migrants were Yezidis.

According to Salih, 13 people survived the boat wreck and managed to swim back to the Turkish coast.

Others are still missing, he added.

“They were families and relatives travelling together,” Salih said.

R I P

[Anthea]

Mail Online

Harrowing footage released by Yazidi group shows terrified families scream as ISIS gunmen surround them and drag away their wives and daughters to become sex slaves

Screaming girls torn from their parents and corralled into a separate group
Some are dragged by their hair by fighters armed with AK-47 machine guns
ISIS has massacred hundreds of Yazidis and enslaved their wives and girls
By Simon Tomlinson for MailOnline

Harrowing footage has emerged which appears to show ISIS gunmen dragging terrified wives and daughters from their families to make them sex slaves.

The video, posted online by activists, shows a crowd of screaming Yazidis being separated one by one by militants armed with AK-47s in what appears to be an apartment block.

Terrified girls try to cling to their parents but are ripped away, some by their hair, and corralled into another group at gunpoint.

Link to Video:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/embed/video/1238085.html

Above them, the sinister ISIS black flag is hung from a balcony beside more jihadists, one of whom appears to be brandishing a rocket launcher.

The video, which appears to have been uploaded to Facebook by Yazidi activists, has not been independently verified and the fate of the captives is not known.

ISIS massacred as many as 5,000 Yazidi men and abducted hundreds of women and young girls, when it swept through the Iraqi town of Sinjar last year.

Some women have been lucky enough to escape or be freed, but have given horrific accounts of rape, torture and suicide.

Pregnant women have also been forced to undergo abortions leaving them unable to move or speak.

ISIS jihadists would bring their own gynaecologists to 'slave markets' where captured women who were found to be pregnant would be subjected to painful abortions so they could be used for sex.

Some captives have chosen to kill themselves than endure further torture.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/ ... 133001.jpg
Slaughtered: ISIS gunmen stormed the village of Kocho last year and massacred around 800 men, women and children (pictured above)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... laves.html

[Anthea]

AFAD camp sheltering Êzîdîs evacuated and occupied by Turkish forces

The state-run camp of AFAD (Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency) sheltering Êzîdîs in Nusaybin district of Mardin has been turned into a military headquarters.

Turkish security forces have today forcibly evacuated the AFAD camp which was built to shelter Êzîdî groups who migrated from Shengal after the beginning of ISIS attacks almost two years ago.

While the Êzîdî people were sent to another camp in Midyat district, special operation police have turned the refugee camp into a military headquarters.

Turkish army has sent reinforcements to the AFAD camp, 5 km to Nusaybin town, throughout the day in what seems to be preparation for a new wave of attacks.

Nusaybin has been through a curfew six times during the recent months when Turkish military and police forces have intensified their attacks against the neighborhoods where people declared self-rule in response to the never-ending repression and atrocity of the state.

[Anthea]

PEOPLE MUST NEVER FORGET

phpBB [video]

[Anthea]

Many thousands of Yazidis are trapped in wet freezing refugee camps

Some will NOT survive the winter

Please click on image to enlarge

[Anthea]

The Washington Post

Little Yazidi girl, 7, speaks of ISIS brow-beating

Sitting in a U.N. refugee tent in a camp filled with 18,000 refugees, my stomach turns and my eyes are wet, listening to yet one more horrific, unimaginable crime committed against Yazidi children, girls and women. It is Christmas Eve 2015 and this author is outside Dohuk, Iraq, in the Sharya Refugee camp where Yazidis have lived since August 2014, when they fled the ISIS invasion of Sinjar Province.

Link to Full Shocking Article:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... eaks-isis/

[Anthea]

August 2014 ISIS invaded regions near Mount Sinjar

The Islamic State terrorists killed and abducted thousands of local Yazidi people
many of them women and children who they sold openly at slave markets

NO COUNTRY HAS MADE AN EFFORT TO FREE THEM

phpBB [video]

[Anthea]

Press TV

Iraqi Kurds find new mass grave containing 50 bodies in SinjarIraqi

Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters have found a mass grave in the country’s northwestern town of Sinjar, over two months after retaking the town from the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

“We have found a new mass grave in Sinjar. The mass grave is in an area called Zlelia, between the cement manufacture and the center of the city,” said Qasim Shesho, an Izadi Peshmerga commander, adding that the grave might contain some 40 to 50 bodies.

According to the mayor of Sinjar, Mahma Khalil, the mass grave also includes bodies of children and women.

Early in December, the United Nations human rights agency said that “gross human rights violations” were committed by Daesh in the town, adding that civilians had been kidnapped, burnt and beheaded by the Takfiri militants there.

Around 20 mass graves have so far been discovered in and around Sinjar, containing bodies of hundreds of people.

Back in August 2014, Daesh militants overran Sinjar, killing, raping, and enslaving large numbers of Izadi Kurds. The town was later recaptured on November 13, 2015, during a two-day operation by Iraqi Peshmerga forces and Izadi fighters.

The northern and western parts of Iraq have been plagued by violence ever since Daesh began an offensive in the Arab country in June 2014.

The terrorists have committed crimes against all communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians, Izadi Kurds and others in the two countries.

Army soldiers and Popular Mobilization Units are seeking to take back militant-held regions in joint operations.

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/01/18 ... ign=buffer

[Anthea]

Mail Online

'The saddest thing I remember was this little girl, 12 years old. They raped her without mercy': Dressed in traditional wedding gowns, Yazidi sex slaves relive their torture by ISIS

Women who were captured by ISIS and escaped tell their stories
These Yazidi women were held for months, raped and tortured
Most survived around seven to ten months in ISIS hands

More than 5,000 Yazidi women were captured and enslaved by ISIS forces when the militant Islamist terrorists attacked the city of Sinjar, northern Iraq in August 2014.

The women, some just teenagers, were forced to watch ISIS militants murder their families before they were sold into sexual slavery.

While many remain in the evil clutches of ISIS, some have managed to escape to relay horrific tales of abuse, rape, slavery and brutal torture.

In some cases, the young women returned home carrying the unborn children of their captors.

Seivan Salim, an Iraqi female photographer, tracked down some of the women who managed to escape.

She has portrayed them wearing the traditional white Yazidi wedding dress – a symbol for purity.

Each woman tells her story in her own words.

Link to Full SHOCKING MUST READ Article and Photos:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -ISIS.html

[Anthea]

Rudaw

UN: ISIS has 3,500 women and child slaves in Iraq alone

The United Nations has reported that the Islamic State (ISIS) group has taken 3,500 people -- mostly Yezidi women and children -- into slavery in Iraq alone.

The report, published Tuesday by the UN’s Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), also confirms that ISIS is religiously indoctrinating and training some 800-900 children in the city of Mosul to fight for the group.

The report reiterated UN accusations that ISIS's various abuses "amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide.

It also said that a staggering 19,000 people were killed in Iraq over a 21-month period, between January 2014 and October last year.

”Even the obscene casualty figures fail to accurately reflect exactly how terribly civilians are suffering in Iraq,” said the UN's human rights chief, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein

”The figures capture those who were killed or maimed by overt violence, but countless others have died from lack of access to basic food, water or medical care," he said.

http://rudaw.net/NewsDetails.aspx?pageid=187806

[Anthea]

I am delighted by Judit Neurink's article - so delighted that I am posting it twice

Though people must remember that after the horrors the Yezidis have been through many will not wish to return - they should be given the option to join with others and rebuild their community in another country

Start rebuilding Shingal to keep more Yezidis from leaving
Judit Neurink

Some shops have opened in Shingal, the Yezidi-town recaptured two months ago from the Islamic group ISIS who occupied it for a year and a half. The local telephone tower has been re-equipped, after having been taken out of use as part of ISIS’ no-connection policy. Water tankers drive on and off to bring water to soldiers and shopkeepers, and generators hum to provide electricity.

But the rubble still lies where it was when Peshmerga troops liberated the town in November. Even the collapsed Manara, a historical monument that was part of the face of the town, has been left untouched. As have the roads, of which many are blocked by the effects of the bombing campaigns that eventually led to ISIS fleeing the town.

Some of the enormous tunnel network under the town still has not been discovered. The same goes for some explosives and booby-traps ISIS left behind. And most importantly, ISIS still is out there, only at about 10 kilometres from the town.

Yet the Kurdish mayor of Shingal, Mahma Khalil, states that civilians will return as soon as the most important services have been restored. Give them water and electricity, and they will come back, is his message.

A first report about the damages shows that some ten million dollars is needed to restore those services again. Money that is not available, because the Kurdish region of Iraq is just about bankrupt and Iraq is in no hurry to dip in.

Though the Kurdish Peshmerga played a major role in liberating Shingal, and the Iraqi army none, the political status of the province remains unclear. Officially it is part of Iraq, but it is ruled by Kurdistan.

The Kurds have put their boots down in different ways: it is their military that is now occupying the town and keeping ISIS at bay, their mayor is in charge and their security police checks on who comes and goes. They want Shingal to become a province of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and the future independent Kurdish state.

At the same time, the only civilians that I recently met in Shingal-town, apart from the few shopkeepers caring mainly for the soldiers’ needs, were evangelical Christians, and no Yezidis. While no NGO has settled in town to start the rebuilding process, a group of young evangelicals did, to repair houses, as they state.

Other civilians have visited, and some men have returned on day trips to do some repairs. Even others are driving in and out, collecting what ISIS left behind, or what was still left in houses the group already looted.

The shopkeepers who came, left their families behind in the Kurdish refugee camps. When asked if they will bring them if there was water and electricity, they point out: “ISIS still is out there”.

That, plus the fact that ISIS still has not been evicted from a large number of villages in the area, are main obstacles for people to return.

So much so that since Shingal has been liberated, the flow of Yezidis leaving Iraq has not decreased, but rather only grown. Of the about 80,000 who have left since August 2014, half left recently.

They saw the rubble, they heard the politicians exchanging claims for their land and they saw how near ISIS still is. That caused so much desperation that many took the risk of crossing the seas between Turkey and Greece, with weekly reports of families drowning on the way.

It is clear that Yezidis will keep trying to get to a better life as long as they do not see a future in their own region. The only way to keep them in Iraq, is to offer them a future here, as is also the wish of their religious leaders.

Leaving the rubble untouched, two months on, does not send the right message. Nor does the declaration of the mayor, that he is waiting for international support. His call for a Marshall-
plan to rebuild the city tells civilians nothing will change any time soon.

NGO’s had made plans for rebuilding Shingal after the liberation. What happened to them? Where are UN-organisations and the international NGO’s that could help Shingal out of this impasse?

The main thing now is to get started, to end the waiting. That it can be done was proven in the Syrian Kurdish town Kobane, where civilians soon came back to clear rubble and rebuild – whilst ISIS had not been pushed back much further than in Shingal.

Civilians need to see that authorities and NGO’s are working to clear up their town. They must have the sense that they are supported, and that they can count on the help of their own government(s) as much as on the outside world. Only when they are convinced to join the effort can Shingal slowly come alive again and, just as important: can more horrible drownings be prevented.

http://rudaw.net/english/opinion/26012016

[Anthea]

ARA News

Kurdish Peshmergas repel ISIS attack on Yezidi region north Iraq
By Sozbin Cheleng

Iraqi Kurdistan’s Peshmerga forces repelled an attempt by militant fighters of the Islamic State (ISIS) to infiltrate into the recently liberated Yezidi region of Shingal (Sinjar) in northwestern Iraq, military sources said on Tuesday.

A group of ISIS militants launched a mortar attack on the Kurdish headquarters in southern Shingal, coupled with three suicide bombings near a Peshmerga checkpoint in the same area.

At least four members of the Peshmerga were reportedly injured in the attack.

Speaking to ARA News, Peshmerga officer Ahmed Hisen said that the Kurdish forces clashed with ISIS militants subsequent to the attack, forcing the group to withdraw towards its strongholds in Mosul.

“The attack started when the group launched several mortar shells on our headquarters, while three Daesh terrorists carried out suicide bombings in the area on Tuesday evening. Then several others tried to infiltrate into Shingal, but our forces responded with artillery shelling and heavy machine guns,” the Peshmerga official said, using another acronym for ISIS.

“More than ten Daesh terrorists were killed in the clashes,” the source confirmed.

“We were eventually able to foil the terror operation, forcing the militants to retreat from the area,” Hisen said.

After more than a year of ISIS occupation, the Yezidi region of Shingal was liberated in November at the hands of the Peshmerga, supported by the U.S.-led coalition’s air cover.

After ISIS departure, the Kurdish forces have discovered several mass graves in Shingal. Most of the victims were women and children from the Yezidi minority. Specialized teams, that have been inspecting traces of the people disappeared during the group’s rule over the Yezidi-populated region, have so far discovered five mass graves belonging to Yezidi civilians, according to human rights activists and Peshmerga officials who spoke to ARA News.

Shingal enjoys a strategic location as it connects the cities of Raqqa in northeastern Syria with Mosul in northwestern Iraq –both held by ISIS.

By recapturing Shingal, the Kurds have cut off one of the main ISIS supply lines in the region.

In August 2014, ISIS extremists had taken control of Shingal, causing a mass displacement of nearly 400,000 Yezidi civilians towards Duhok and Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan. Tens of thousands of Yezidis remained trapped in Mount Sinjar, suffering mass killings, kidnappings and rape at the hands of ISIS extremists.

http://aranews.net/2016/01/kurdish-pesh ... orth-iraq/

[Anthea]

Mail Omline

Yazidi sex slaves forced to undergo degrading 'virginity tests'

Yazidi former sex slaves who escaped ISIS subjected to procedure

Those who had been unmarried when kidnapped had 'virginity tests'

More than 5,000 Yazidi women were captured by ISIS in August 2014

'Virginity tests; were carried out as part of 'rape exams' in Iraqi Kurdistan

Hundreds of Yazidi women and children who had been captured and kept as sex slaves by ISIS have been forced to undergo 'virginity tests' - after they managed to escape.

Freed former sex slaves were subjected to the degrading and invasive procedure by Kurdish officials as part of a 'post-rape examination', a human rights group has revealed.

Witnesses say the 'virginity tests' had been carried out on the young women and girls who had been unmarried when they were kidnapped by ISIS in 2014.

More than 5,000 Yazidi women and teenage girls were captured and enslaved by ISIS forces when the militant Islamist terrorists attacked the city of Sinjar, northern Iraq in August 2014.

The women, some just teenagers, were forced to watch ISIS militants murder their families before they were sold into sexual slavery.

While many remain in the evil clutches of ISIS, some have managed to escape to relay horrific tales of abuse, rape, slavery and brutal torture.

Many have sought refuge in Kurdish Iraq, where some claim to have been subjected to 'virginity tests', a procedure which has been found time and time again to have no scientific validity.

According to Judge Ayman Bamerny, who heads a committee gathering evidence of ISIS crimes, these tests were seen as evidence of rape by Iraqi courts, Human Rights Watch reports.

The World Health Organization has stated definitively that 'virginity tests' have no scientific validity, based on a commonly held - but inaccurate - belief that all women and girls who are virgins have intact hymens that bleed on first intercourse.

'As officials work toward proper forensic examinations of rape survivors, they should ensure that all women and girls in Iraq who were subject to sexual violence are treated with dignity and respect,' Human Rights Watch adds.

This follows a UN report which said an estimated 3,500 people, mainly women and children, are still believed to be held as slaves by ISIS.

The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq and U.N. human rights office estimated that 3,500 people were 'currently being held in slavery by ISIS numbers'.

'Those being held are predominantly women and children and come primarily from the Yazidi community, but a number are also from other ethnic and religious minority communities,' said the joint report issued in Geneva.

Link to Article - Video - Photos - Supportive Comments:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... l#comments

[Anthea]

Daily Express

Hundreds of Yazidi sex slaves gear up to FIGHT savage ISIS and ‘TAKE BACK’ prisoners

The legion have seen their numbers boom as hundreds of women freed from the twisted terror cell have joined to help take back the Iraqi town of Mosul – where the oppressive regime has set up its headquarters.

Captain of the Kurdish group Khatoon Khider revealed a massive 500 recruits are being trained up to join the 123 former slaves and battle on the front line.

The group – dubbed

“Force of the Sun Ladies”

– has already helped take back Sinjar from the sick death cult and is continuing its assault.

The UN believe ISIS, also known as Daesh, holds around 3,500 people captive in Iraq – the majority being Yazidi women and girls.

Ms Khider said taking back Mosul will be a test but they are driven on to liberate the women.

She said: "We have a lot of our women in Mosul being held as slaves.

“Their families are waiting for them. We are waiting for them. The liberation might help bring them home.

“Now we are defending ourselves from the evil, we are defending all the minorities in the region.”

The force is now becoming an inspiration for women wanting to joining the fight.

The captain said "we will do whatever is asked of us" to defeat the depraved militant group.

[Anthea]

Independent

Isis keep closer eye on enslaved Yazidi women after series of dramatic rescues strike at the heart of the 'caliphate'

Fearing the escape of the spoils of their war, the jihadists of Isis have substantially increased the security surrounding thousands of Yazidi slaves after a series of dramatic rescue operations striking at the heart of the “caliphate”.

Smugglers, government officials, lawyers and advocates all say that it will now be much harder to rescue the estimated 3,500 Yazidi women and children still trapped in Isis-held territory. Another potentially critical problem is the financial crisis engulfing Iraqi Kurdistan, which means less money for costly operations to spirit Yazidis through smuggling routes to Kurdish-controlled territory.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which is suffering partly because of the drop in the global oil price, was providing funds for rescue missions but that money is no longer available. Instead, Yazidi families are trying to borrow cash to cover the costs of Isis ransom demands and smugglers’ fees for safe houses and transport. So far, more than 2,000 Yazidi women and children have been rescued from Isis: by ransom, escape or release.

The captives were taken in 2014 as Isis seized control of Sinjar in north-western Iraq, home to hundreds of thousands of members of the minority religion Isis labelled infidels. Isis abducted younger women and children and murdered men and older women. Those who could not flee were killed and buried in mass graves.

Layla (not her real name), 25, was rescued from Syria with the help of a smuggler network at the end of last year. Her family paid $25,000 (£17,500) to her Saudi Isis captor for her release, and then smugglers took her across the frontline and back into Iraq. Now living in a camp in Iraqi Kurdistan, she spoke to The Independent as her children climbed over her in their small tent. After her capture in August 2014, she was transferred between prisons in Mosul with her children. She was taken to a school in Raqqa, Syria, and then sent to a slave market in the cellar of a house in Deir ez-Zour.

“They put all females in line and Isis fighters came and if they liked one they would take her for themselves,” she said. There were more than 40 women and girls in the market. Some were old and some were as young as eight or nine, Layla said. The prices depended on age and beauty, the most expensive costing $6,000. Layla was sold to an Iraqi fighter who locked her in his house and beat her. He then sold her to the Saudi fighter. She said: “We hoped the air strikes would come and hit us and kill us and maybe we would be more comfortable.”

According to Dr Nuri Osman, an official with the KRG who has been involved in the rescue of hostages, Isis is responding to efforts to free Yazidis by hiding them more carefully, moving them from place to place and assigning guards to watch them. The operations were also getting harder because of a lack of cash, he said. “Rescue operations cost us money, mainly for transportation and for safe places to keep them until we take them to Kurdistan. Usually we use smugglers and they ask for money because they are at risk among Isis. If they capture [the smugglers] they will kill them.”

Abu Shujaa, the nickname of a smuggler working to rescue girls from Syria, said girls in Mosul and Raqqa had to register at a neighbourhood security office and if they tried to escape they would be jailed for two years. This process was in place before, but now when he tried to call the girls, Isis was monitoring the phone network to try to find out who was calling them. The girls were encouraged to call the smugglers so they would be caught, he said. He added that the Islamists had become stricter, in part because of their “shame” after the rescue of 100 girls from Raqqa, the de facto Isis capital in Syria, earlier this year.

Abu Shujaa said he has a network of 30 contacts working with him, and that 14 people from his network had been found, tortured and killed. He has also received threats from Isis, which contacted him via WhatsApp and Facebook, threatening to kill his family. “They said, ‘We know your place and how many kids you have because we have people in Kurdistan’.” His family are now in Europe.

Khalil Haji, another smuggler and former lawyer who runs a network in Iraq, told The Independent that the security measures in Syria had been increased. “In Iraq it is OK, we can rescue them, but in our office there is no money. The families don’t have the money and the government doesn’t have the money.” Smugglers report that the majority of the Yazidi hostages are now being held in Syria.

Matthew Barber, the executive director of Yazda, a Yazidi rights NGO, said Isis was getting better at securing its prisoners, adding that all those who could be easily freed had been. “We are witnessing a drastic decrease in the frequency of rescues and escapes and I think it would take military action to change the conditions to allow more people to leave.”

Despite the dangers and the new obstacles, Abu Shujaa said he would continue trying to rescue hostages. “If I rescue one girl I believe that I bring her back to life one more time, and for me I believe that one rescue is better than killing 100 Isis guys.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 80211.html