Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

[Anthea]

Iraqi minister to visit Kurdistan Region

Iraq’s Minister of Immigration and Displaced Evan Faeq Jabro will visit the Kurdistan Region on Thursday in response to the spike in deaths by suicide in displacements camps

The minister also announced the formation of a committee to examine the general rise in suicide in Iraq, especially within displacement camps, Iraqi State Media (INA) reported on Tuesday.

The new committee will start its work by visiting five displacement camps in the Kurdistan Region to produce a study on the subject, INA reported.

At least eleven Yazidis have died by suicide in the three weeks since the start of 2021, sources have told Rudaw English.

The minister told Al Monitor last week that the trip would serve as the basis to start closing down camps in the autonomous region, which have thus far not followed suit with the federal government’s rapid camp closure mission.

“As for the Kurdistan Region’s camps, we are about to conduct a special visit to coordinate an effort to close 10 camps in the first phase [of closures]," she told the media outlet.

In October 2020, six years after the advance of ISIS left millions of residents of northern and western Iraq displaced, Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displacement announced it would be accelerating its shutdown of camps in central government-run territory, still home to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi.

The UN and international NGOs have expressed worry about the hastiness of camp closures, but the government has continued to press ahead.

The KRG doesn’t appear to be planning the mass closure of its camps – home to over 200,000 Iraqi IDPs, according to the KRG’s Joint Crisis Coordination Centre (JCC), with another 500,000 IDPs living in urban communities – though it continues with its years-long push for voluntary returns.

"After the closure of the Salamiyya camp in Nineveh Governorate, we are now waiting for a decision from the Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi to start the process of closing Al-Jada'a camp in Mosul, which now has 2,290 displaced families," Ali Abbas, Spokesman for Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displacement, told Rudaw on Monday.

Families with suspected links to the Islamic State (ISIS) group that were at the Salamiya camp, which closed on Friday, were to be moved to al-Jadaa camp in Mosul, Abbas told Rudaw English on January 12. "They cannot return [home] because of the tribal persecution and societal rejection."

"Al-Jada camp will be closed after solving the problem of ISIS families, as these families must be reintegrated into society again because they cannot be isolated in camps forever," he added.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/190120217

[Anthea]

Ministers discuss Shingal agreement

Turkey’s Minister of Defense Hulusi Akar met on Tuesday with Kurdistan Prime Minister Masrour Barzani to discuss implementing the Erbil-Baghdad agreement on the disputed district of Shingal, stressing the "importance" of removing militias and "unauthorized armed forces" from the area

Akar arrived in Erbil from Baghdad on Monday evening and was received by the Kurdistan Region’s Minister of Peshmerga Shorsh Ismail, Kurdistan Region Presidency’s chief of staff Fawzi Hariri, and the head of the Department of Foreign Relations Safeen Dizayee.

He met with PM Barzani and Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani on Tuesday.

The importance of implementing the Shingal agreement was stressed in the meeting as well as “the evacuation of militias and unauthorized armed forces” to stabilize Shingal, read a Tuesday statement from the PM's office.

Baghdad reached a deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in October over the governance and security of Shingal, in Nineveh province, to resolve a number of issues preventing displaced Shingalis from returning to the area.

Under the Erbil-Baghdad agreement, security for the troubled region will be Baghdad's responsibility and federal government will have to establish a new armed force recruited from the local population and expel fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and their affiliated groups.

The district, once mostly home to Iraq’s Yazidi minority, has been under the control of multiple groups since its liberation from the Islamic State (ISIS).

Turkey has targeted the district in several airstrikes.

Turkey launched renewed airstrikes in the Kurdistan Region and disputed territories in mid-June, dubbed Operation Claw-Eagle. Said to target the PKK, numerous civilians were killed in the strikes. The ground operation, Claw-Tiger, concluded in September.

Shingal was targeted several times in Operation Claw-Eagle, and also saw aerial attacks from Ankara before the offensive.

The PKK – which Turkey regards as a terrorist organization - is a Kurdish armed group that has fought the Turkish state for decades for increased rights for the country’s Kurdish minority. Its headquarters are in the Kurdistan Region's Qandil mountains, but PKK-affiliated groups are also found in the mountains around Shingal.

Both Erbil and Baghdad have repeatedly called on Ankara to halt its attacks and have demanded the PKK cease using Kurdistan Region and Iraqi territory to launch attacks on Turkey.

“Cooperation and the continuity of friendly ties between the Kurdistan Region and Turkey was stressed, especially cooperation and collaboration for stability and security in the region,” added Tuesday’s statement.

Akar also met with the leader of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the former president of the Kurdistan Region, Masoud Barzani on Tuesday.

“We discussed the ongoing cooperation between Iraq, the Kurdistan Region, and Turkey and stressed the significance of further strengthening that correlation,” Barzani said in a tweet.

Akar met in Baghdad with Iraq’s President Barham Salih and Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhimi and other senior Iraqi officials on Monday. Iraqi and Turkish relations were discussed, according to the presidency office, as well as respecting Iraq’s sovereignty and developing military cooperation between the two states.

The meetings were supposed to be held in August last year but an airstrike by Turkey in Erbil province’s Bradost area on August 11 which resulted in the death of two senior Iraqi border officials, both Kurds, raised tensions between the two sides.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/190120211

[Anthea]

Yazidis find solace in music

In Shingal’s Khanasor town, Yazidis are taking to musical instruments to heal from their pain



The Mirzo Institute for Music (MIM) opened last year to aid survivors of the Islamic State (ISIS) group’s genocidal campaign beginning in 2014 with music.

“We want everyone to join these music lessons. We want more women who have been rescued from Daesh to join us in order to forget [the trauma they endured under ISIS]," Amira Barakat, a student in the newest session, told Rudaw on Friday, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State (ISIS) group.

Sixty-five men, women, and children have taken courses taught by three teachers at the center thus far. They have theoretical and practical training three days a week, two hours each.

“It is a great feeling to perform on the tambour [musical instrument]. It feels great to make music while also singing,” Salih Qasim, another student, told Rudaw.

Link to Article - Video:

https://www.rudaw.net/english/culture/25012021

[Anthea]

Yazidis face Turkish massacre from Shengal to Afrin

The Yazidis have been targeted by the Turkish state throughout history. The Yazidis, who were subjected to numerous massacres during the Ottoman period, protected themselves thanks to their resistance structures

Click on photo enlarge:


Trying to complete what the Ottomans could not do, the Turkish state continues to commit massacres in front of all humanity in the 21st century. The Turkish state, which occupied Afrin with various pretexts and an international conspiracy, also targets the Yazidis living here.

Afrin, where there are 23 Yazidi villages, is also the city hosting the highest number of Yazidis after Shengal. It is possible to come across people belonging to the Yazidi faith in many districts of Afrin. The practices of the Turkish state and its gangs in Afrin are on par with the practices ISIS committed in Shengal in 2014.

The Turkish state, seeking to destroy everything belonging to the Yazidi belief, destroyed 19 Yazidi temples in Afrin. One of the main objectives of policies to change the demographic structure in Afrin is the Yazidis.

Yazidi women suffer the most from the brutal crimes of the Turkish state. Since the occupation of Afrin in March 2018, crimes against Yazidi women are increasing each day. While the gangs kidnapped hundreds of Yazidi women and released some of them in return for ransom, the fate of most of them is still unknown.

A Yazidi woman named Xaliya Seid who was abducted from Ceqlê village was released for 7 thousand Euros. No news was received from another Yazidi woman named Xezalê, who was abducted in Basofa village, after she suffered severe torture. Edulê Sefer, kidnapped in the village of Qestel Cindo, was released in return for a ransom of 6 thousand dollars after staying in the captivity of the gangs for 6 months. A woman named Fatima Nesro was abducted from the village of Qibar. Fatima was also released for a thousand dollars.

The Turkish army continues its threats against Yazidi women. They are forcing the Yazidis to migrate.

Eyşê Seydo, a member of the Yazidi Women's Coordination, stated that the fate of hundreds of kidnapped Yazidi women is unknown, and the Turkish state forced many Yazidi women into marriage. Reminding that this practice was also carried out by ISIS in Shengal in 2014, Eyşê noted that the Turkish army wanted to distance the Yazidis from their beliefs, force them to convert to Islam, or to migrate.

Gulê Cafer, one of the directors of the Afrin Region's Civil Society Organizations Coordination, talked about the practices towards Yazidi women and recalled that dozens of Yazidi women are still in the hands of the Turkish state and its gangs.

According to the data shared by the Yazidi Union in Afrin, dozens of Yazidis were massacred in the Turkish occupied city. The Yazidi Union, which reports the names and identity information of the victims, shares all the data and documents it obtains with international human rights institutions. Despite all this, the international community, maintaining its silence, encourages the Turkish state to commit more crimes.

The gangs, who do not recognize any laws when dealing with Yazidis, also take away their property rights. Recently, the gangs raided a house in the village of Feqira and announced that they had confiscated all the assets of Xano Iso (65) leaving him tied in chains.

The Turkish state, acting like ISIS with its practices in Afrin, is also trying to revive ISIS. Yazidi institutions in Afrin consider this as an effort to bring back Ottomanism. Continuing his threats against the Yazidis, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in a statement he recently made regarding Shengal, said, "We might come suddenly one night," signaling that he will continue the massacres against the Yazidi community that he could not complete.

[Anthea]

Presence of armed groups in Shingal

News of the continued presence of armed groups in Shingal (Sinjar) is false, claims the spokesperson of Iraq’s Joint Operations Command, despite locals reporting the continued presence of militias in the disputed district, in contradiction to an Erbil-Baghdad governance and security deal

"There are no armed organizations inside Sinjar under any name, and we will never allow it to be," Major General Tahsin al-Khafaji claimed in an interview with Rudaw's Sangar Abdulrahman on Wednesday, describing claims otherwise as just rumours.

The withdrawal of armed groups is a central tenet of a deal struck in October between the Iraq’s federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which seeks to settle the district’s fraught security by establishing a new armed force recruited from the local population.

Haidar Shasho, commander of the Ezidkhan Protection Force in Shingal incorporated into the Peshmerga forces, told Rudaw English earlier in January that several different armed groups remain in Shingal.

“There are still Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi) units and Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) affiliated groups inside Shingal, even though they were supposed to leave,” Shasho said on January 18.

The Shingal Resistance Units (YBS) in late November reportedly said it would withdraw its forces from the district and relocate to Mount Sinjar after meetings with Iraqi forces, however, it is unclear the extent to which the group has withdrawn.

Khafaji has in the past asserted that even the state-sponsored PMF would be leaving Shingal to make way for the local force.

Commenting on anti-terrorism efforts, Khafaji maintains that the US-led Coalition is currently “essential” in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) group.

"The international coalition is still working effectively with the Iraqi army and its presence is based on legal agreements," Khafaji said, noting that the Coalition has huge military capabilities that can target ISIS locations with precision and ease.

"Iraq cannot expel the foreign forces as the coalition forces are committed to the timetable for withdrawal, which will take place in accordance with the legal contexts with no pressure," the spokesperson added.

ISIS took control of large parts of Iraq in 2014. Although the Iraqi government announced the territorial defeat of ISIS in December 2017, remnants of the group have returned to earlier insurgency tactics, ambushing security forces, kidnapping and executing suspected informants, and extorting money from vulnerable rural populations.

The Iraqi capital was shook by a double suicide bombing on January 21, which saw the deaths of more than 30 people. Just three days later at least 11 PMF fighters were killed in an ISIS ambush in Tikrit province.

"There are some areas where ISIS is active, especially on borders between Iraq and Syria, which still have many gaps," Khafaji said.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/28012021

[Anthea]

Human rights violations in Afrin

Several civil society groups in Qamishli on Saturday hosted a forum on human rights violations taking place in northern Syria’s Afrin, where Turkish-backed groups have been accused of a whole host of transgressions

Taking place nearly three years after Turkey and its Syrian proxies took control of Afrin with the stated aim of removing Kurdish forces on its borders, the conference was attended by human rights organizations, activists, lawyers among others, as well as witnesses and survivors of crimes.

Asmahan Hassan, 42, a mother of four, was among the attendees. She fled the Turkish invasion of Afrin in 2018, only to lose her son in Aleppo’s town of Tel Rifaat when a bomb fell on the house they sought refuge in.

“When my son was martyred it was really tough. The situation is not good in Tel Rifaat, a week ago there were shellings again. Fourteen young men, two children, a woman, and a man were martyred,” she told Rudaw’s Viviyan Fetah on Saturday at the conference. “Whenever my children hear a sound, they get scared and say bombs are coming. We are always being bombarded.”

Turkish-backed groups have been widely accused of human rights violations against Afrin’s locals, many of which are Yazidis, including kidnap, looting and extortion.

Accusations in the area, including land theft, have rung out since the invasion in March 2018, dubbed Operation Olive Branch. Human rights groups and the United Nations have published reports detailing arbitrary arrests, detention and pillaging, among other violations.

According to data collected by five organizations from Syria, including the Syria Human Rights Organization in Afrin and Western Kurdistan Center for Strategic Studies, and handed out to participants at the forum that Rudaw obtained a copy of, at least 70 people were reportedly killed in Afrin in explosions and clashes in 2020, as well as 97 injured, in addition to around 970 kidnappings and 65 tortures.

“This forum’s main aim is to show the abuses that are being committed so that they are discussed internationally,” Mizgin Hassan, a member of the conference’s preparatory committee, told Fattah.

Afrin was under the control of Kurdish forces from early on in the Syrian uprising until March 2018, until Turkey and its Syrian proxies invaded the enclave.

Amnesty International found shortly after the invasion that the “Turkish occupation of Afrin has led to widespread human rights violations.”

In its annual report for 2019, the rights group documented the arbitrary detention of more than 50 locals, among a “wide range of abuses” against Afrin’s civilians.

Sixteen people, including two minors, were kidnapped and tortured in Afrin’s village of Kakhara by a Turkish-backed Syrian armed group on Wednesday, the Afrin-based Human Rights Organization Ibrahim Sheikho told Rudaw on Wednesday.

Since the beginning of the year, nearly 100 people have been arrested, including women and children, Sheikho told Rudaw’s Omer Kalo on Wednesday.

At least six people were killed, including a child, and 29 others injured in a large explosion in Afrin, northwestern Syria on Saturday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

Turkey-backed rebels have been accused of cutting down masses of Afrin’s famous olive trees, which was many people’s source of living for decades by producing olive oil in the area's mild climate.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeas ... /300120212

[Anthea]

‘Sabaya’: Sundance Review

Tense and riveting doc follows attempts to free captured Yazidi women from the notorious Al-Hol camp


Lolav Media/Ginestra Film. Courtesy of Sundance Institute

‘Sabaya’

Five years ago, Daesh (ISIS) attacked the Yazidi people of the Sinjar Province of Iraq. Thousands were slaughtered, and yet more Yazidi women and girls were abducted, to be sold and held as ‘Sabaya’ or sex slaves.

Many of them remain prisoners, held in tents by Daesh sympathisers in the vast Al-Hol Camp in northeastern Syria, widely regarded as the most dangerous refugee settlement in the Middle East.

It is here that Mahmud, Shejk and a group of fearless female infiltrators rescue the Yazidi women, one by one. Remarkable access and nerves of steel (on the part of both the subjects and of filmmaker Hogir Hirori) makes for a riveting documentary which is as tense as it is revealing.

No shortage of heart-in-mouth drama

Sabaya is Swedish/Kurdish filmmaker Hirori’s follow up to the multi-award-winning The Deminer, which premiered at IDFA 2017 and received the Special Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Following on from its world premiere at Sundance, the film should be high on the wishlists for further festivals, particularly those events with an emphasis on human rights.

And working on the assumption that audience interest in stories from the war-torn areas of the Middle East remains strong following the success of For Sama, documentary distributors should also express an interest.

While there is no shortage of heart-in-mouth drama, the film differs in approach from pictures like For Sama in the slightly more arm’s length relationship it builds with its central characters.

The main focus of the film is Mahmud, a volunteer for an organisation called Yazidi Home Center. Driven, stonily serious and glued to a mobile phone which works only sporadically, Mahmud seems oblivious to the camera which shadows him, and certainly has no interest in engaging with it.

His preoccupation, to the exclusion of pretty much everything else, is always the next young woman to be located and rescued. It’s a mission that sometimes sees him at odds with his wife, Siham, who is only too aware of the risks her husband takes night after night, while she shoulders the responsibilities of family and home.

That home, it transpires, plays a crucial part in the rehabilitation of the rescued girls and women. Pulled, under cover of night, from the camp, they then recover for a time in Mahmud’s house. There, his wife and his mother Zahra take over the care, coaxing the traumatised former captives back from the brink of despair.

The simple comfort of a family home is starkly juxtaposed with the world around them. The photography has a sulphurous cast; the night skies are lit by the flames from fields burned by Daesh sympathisers. News reports filter through of car bombs, of Trump-sanctioned Turkish assaults on the region.

Footage from the camp itself is shadowed by the very real threat of discovery. Some of it is shot covertly through a burka; in another scene, a group of new ‘infiltrators’ – former Sabayas who have volunteered to return to the camp to help rescue other captive women – wait in a makeshift office while a gunfight rages outside.

The courage of the infiltrators is remarkable, and ideally we would want to know more about them. However given the vulnerable position they are in, living undercover in Al-Hol, it is perhaps not surprising that they don’t feel inclined to share confidences with the camera.

And ultimately, Hirori’s subtle and unobtrusive approach is one of the film’s strengths – he affords the Sabaya agency over how much they chose to reveal, and a respect which has long been absent from their lives.

https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/sab ... 49.article

[Anthea]

ISIS bride movie in Duhok camps

A Portuguese film crew is making a movie in two camps in Duhok province sheltering Yazidis displaced from their homes by the Islamic State (ISIS) group



The Bride, based on a true story, tells the tale of a Christian teenager who marries an ISIS jihadist.

“The film is about the widows of Daesh [ISIS] fighters, what makes a girl of 16-years-old go and run away from home to the area of Daesh fighters, and what makes a European come to such a situation,” explained director Sergio Trefaut. “There is this kind of case in Portugal and people want to know what is in the head of those girls.”

The project is a boost to the Kurdistan Region’s own film industry as more than half the crew are locals.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/culture/31012021

Link to short video about the film:

https://youtu.be/MVd8N2KB3RY

[Anthea]

Iraqi President receives Nadia Murad

Iraqi President Barham Salih on Sunday met with Yazidi activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad in Baghdad, just days after a bill in parliament that would offer reparations to female genocide survivors from the ethno-religious minority failed to make the quorum needed to be voted on

Salih called on parliament "to expedite the legislation of the Yazidi female survivors law by the House of Representatives, and expand it to include other affected segments," in a statement published by state media outlet Iraqi New Agency (INA).

The Yazidi Female Survivors Bill, which has languished in parliament for nearly two years without a vote, guarantees job opportunities to survivors of the Islamic State (ISIS) group by allocating them 2% of jobs in Iraq’s public sector, along with a fixed salary and land, according to details previously released.

"The bill was submitted to a vote last week, but quorum was not met due to the interrogation of the Iraqi Central Bank Director,” Yazidi MP Khaleda Rasho told Rudaw English on Monday. “We do not know when the bill will be submitted to a vote again."

Introduced to parliament in April 2019, the bill has had two readings, but a special parliamentary committee was formed to amend the draft legislation after push back.

"Some of the objections that were registered by MPs, such as those submitted by the Women's Committee to change the name of the bill to "Iraqi Women Survivors' Law " instead of Yazidis, and some other objections by the components, have contributed to the delay in passing the law,” Rasho said, describing the delay as "political" not technical.

The MP confirmed that the bill has been amended to apply beyond just Yazidis. Christian, Shabak, and Turkmen women, along with a number of other minorities who suffered at the hands of ISIS may also benefit from the bill now if passed, according to Rasho.

Some worry that the expanding of the bill to apply beyond Yazidi women will ultimately lead to the watering down of the legislation at the expense of people who desperately need it.

“We know that many people from different backgrounds have been affected by ISIS, but it is not fair to include other minorities in the law, as it is the Yazidis who have been subjected to genocide,” Bahar Ali, the director of the Emma Organization for Human Development, told Rudaw English on Monday.

Upwards of 6,000 women and children were taken captive by ISIS as it took the Yazidi heartland of Shingal in August 2014, committing genocide against the ethno religious community. Thousands are still missing.

Amendments have also arrived from the Yazidi Spiritual Council, recommending the deletion of an article that stipulate that children of Yazidi survivors of sexual violence at the hands of the ISIS be registered as Muslim, in accordance to the Juvenile Welfare Law, which dictates that "a child of unknown parentage is considered an Iraqi Muslim unless proven otherwise."

“This will cause huge problems and divisions within the Yazidi community, so children of survivors should be excluded from this law," Rasho said.

The bill also includes the formation of a committee composed of members representing the ministries of justice and interior, headed by a judge from the Supreme Judicial Council. This committee is concerned with studying each survivor’s case.

"It is important to add a representative from the Kurdistan regional Government (KRG) to the committee, as the genocide center in Dohuk governorate owns all the information and documents of the Yazidi survivors," Rasho said.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/010220212

[Anthea]

Turkey is planning attacks
on Shengal and Dêrik

All indicates that Turkey is planning to expand its occupied territories in north and east Syria and to occupy the Yazidi region of Shengal in northern Iraq

In preparation for the invasion, the Turkish government is currently engaged in a diplomatic offensive on both a regional and international level. The visit to Germany by the Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, tomorrow, Tuesday, should also be viewed in this context, according to Dr. Abdulkarim Omar, co-chair of the External Relations Office of the North and East Syria Autonomous Administration.

"Erdoğan wants to become a neo-Ottoman sultan"

Abdulkarim Omar told Mezopotamya news agency that Turkish first step in establishing territorial rule in northern Syria was the occupation of Afrin, after which Serêkaniyê and Girê Spî were occupied. The foreign policy official added: “Turkey dreams of taking a strip from Aleppo to Mosul under control. Kirkuk is also part of this plan. Erdoğan wants to become a neo-Ottoman sultan and he goes beyond Syria, as we have seen. He also has plans for Libya, the Mediterranean and Armenia."

"If Erdoğan finds the opportunity, he will start a war"

The Muslim Brotherhood is one of the main means to achieve his plan, said Omar, adding: “Erdoğan is serious about his threats. If he can lay the foundations and find the opportunity, then he will start a war against Dêrik and Shengal and occupy a large part of South Kurdistan. We are preparing for every possible situation in northeast Syria and we will resist. We will defend our people and our will from the attacks by Turkey."

Meeting in Baghdad and Damascus

Attacks against Nrth and East Syria take place almost every day. In particular, the front line from Ain Issa to Til Temir is under constant artillery fire by the Turkish army and its Syrian National Army mercenaries.

In the light of these attacks, high-level visits from Turkey were made to Damascus and Baghdad. Commenting on these meetings, Omar said: “These visits are part of the plan of attack. Turkey wants to play a very destructive role in the region. Talks with the KDP in South Kurdistan were also held in this spirit. In this way, Turkey is trying to create a basis for its comprehensive concept of annihilation on an international and regional level. It wants to get certain consent for a comprehensive attack on the Kurds on all fronts."

Hulusi Akar's visit to Germany is in the context of the attacks

Tomorrow, Tuesday, the Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar will arrive in Germany to meet his counterpart Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU). In Omar's view, this visit is also taking place in preparation for the Turkish invasion: “This meeting is about developments in the region. Germany supports Turkey's politics and Turkey plays the refugees card. It is not clear whether this attempt by Turkey will be successful, but the representatives of the Turkish state will meet with many circles to ensure support for its anti-Kurdish plans."

“Constitutional talks will not be successful

Finally, talking about the negotiations for a new Syria constitution in Geneva, Omar said that like all other platforms on the Syrian conflict from which the Autonomous Administration is excluded, this too will not be successful. “This talks actually exclude the will of the peoples of northern and eastern Syria, i.e. about five million people. This platform serves to protect the interests of outside forces. These talks won't work. The UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, ended the meeting without saying when the sixth round will begin. That is actually a clear admission that things are not going well."

[Anthea]

Call for unity against the
threat of Turkish invasion

In Shengal (Sinjar), the Yazidi parties have been called upon to stand together against the threat of invasion by Turkey. Young people have been called upon to participate in the defense of the Yazidi settlement area in southern Kurdistan in the event of an occupation attack



The call was made on behalf of the tribal and faith committees in the presence of tribal elders and Yazidi sheikhs in front of the Şehîd Dilgêş and Şehîd Berxwedan Cemetery of Martyrs in the Shengal Mountains. The joint statement was read out by Dexîl Mirad who said the following:

"As the Committee of Shengal Tribes and Committee of Yazidi Faith, we condemn the threats of the Turkish state. Turkey supports Islamists and wants to divide Iraq. It wants to reach the Shengal Mountains and occupy the region. With untenable justifications, it wants to occupy our holy ground and establish its own bases here.

The history of the Ottoman Empire and the massacres of the peoples there are well known. The past of the Turkish state is marked by massacres of minorities. The massacres of the Armenians, Yazidis and Alevis are just a few of them. Now Turkey wants to commit a new massacre. It wants to occupy Şengal and make the dreams of its forefathers come true.

As tribal elders and as Yazidi religious committee, we are not afraid of the attacks of the Turkish occupying state nor of its partners. We will follow the footsteps of our ancestors and defend our soil and the Yazidi people until our last breath.

We appeal to our people and friends: let us form a unity and defend our sanctuaries and Shengal together. The political parties and military forces must fulfill their national responsibility and oppose the occupiers. We have resisted the ISIS gangs until the end, and we will continue to do so today. We will not leave the Yazidi land."

After the joint statement, individuals took the floor and reiterated the call for resistance.

Turkey is preparing an invasion of Shengal and is soliciting international support for it. To justify the planned occupation, it claims that the PKK has a presence in the region.

When ISIS moved into Shengal in 2014, the roughly 12,000 peshmerga of the South Kurdistan’s ruling party KDP and the Iraqi army stationed in the region withdrew without warning, leaving the Yazidi population defenseless against ISIS. For the Yazidi community, a systematic massacre began accompanied by rape, torture, expulsion, enslavement of girls and women, and forced recruitment of boys as child soldiers. Those who were able to flee retreated into the mountains. There, less than a dozen HPG guerrilla fighters initially protected the entrance to the mountains and prevented the jihadists from entering.

The PKK had already sent a twelve-member advance squad to defend Shengal on June 28, 2014, following a call by Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan. Twenty days before the massacre, the peshmerga arrested three members of the guerrilla group and one Yazidi supporter. The remaining guerrilla fighters moved to Mount Shengal and began organizing youth. When the ISIS attack began on August 3, a nine-member guerrilla group defended the population that fled to Mount Shengal.

The guerrilla fighters held the road running west of Shengal from Sinûnê to Dugirê and prevented ISIS from capturing the mountain. Yezidi youth joined the defense of the mountain. After the nine-member guerrilla group resisted ISIS attacks for several days, two battalions of the People's and Women's Defense Units (YPG/YPJ) from Rojava came to the aid of the HPG on August 6. Subsequently, the YPG/YPJ and the HPG established a security corridor to evacuate the Yazidis, who had fled in their hundreds of thousands to Mount Shengal, to Rojava. Over time, more than 200,000 people were able to reach Rojava through this corridor. This prevented an even greater massacre. The YPG/YPJ and HPG fought sacrificially and repeatedly, even with casualties, to maintain this "humanitarian corridor." 100 fighters fell protecting the evacuation of the population. In total, almost 300 YPG/YPJ and HPG fighters were killed by ISIS in the Shengal massacre.

The PKK defended the Yazidi population against ISIS and saved them from genocide. In the following years, it has enabled the Yazidis to defend and govern themselves. In August 2018, all HPG units were withdrawn from Shengal.

[Anthea]

Yazidi family band play for Duhok camp IDPs

Khal w Khwarza (Uncle and Cousins) are originally from Shingal, but were displaced from their homes in 2014


This all-Yazidi band is a family affair

“At first, we were a three-person band, made up of my uncle [Khairi Murad] with his saz [baglama] and my brother with his guitar. The three of us created the group,” shimshal player Hamada Ismael said.

Now a five-member band, they perform music for free for fellow IDPs at the Chamshko camp in Zakho, Duhok province.

“The idea stemmed from that, we managed to create the group because we are all relatives. The name of the group is Khal u Khwarza. In the beginning, we just played music among ourselves. But when we saw that everyone here was sad, we decided to perform for them,” saz (baglama) player Khairi Murad said.

The audience finds comfort in the band’s performance.

“We live in misery. There is coronavirus. Life is difficult in the tents. This group of musicians performs for us so the atmosphere changes a little and we become happy,” Chamshko resident Haifa Qasim said.

Chamshko camp houses 25,000 IDPs, according to manager of the camp Maamun Yahya – most of whom are Yazidis.

Hundreds of thousands of Yazidis were displaced in 2014 when the Islamic State (ISIS) took over the town of Shingal and its surroundings.

Many of them took shelter in IDP camps of Duhok province, while others sought refuge in Europe.

Link to Article - Video:
https://www.rudaw.net/english/culture/02022021

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Yazidi remains retrieval, Shingal deal

President Nechirvan Barzani received Yazidi activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad in Erbil on Wednesday, with the retrieval of the remains of genocide victims from mass graves and the Shingal agreement between Erbil and Baghdad among the topics discussed, according to the Presidency office



Barzani reaffirmed that the Kurdistan Region would continue its efforts to resolve difficulties affecting the Yazidi community and the district of Shingal, the ethnoreligious community’s heartland, “which needs the cooperation of the international community, the Iraqi government and relative parties,” read a Presidency statement.

Thousands of Yazidis were killed when the Islamic State(ISIS), which considers the ethnoreligious minority to be heretics, tore through Shingal and other parts of northern and western Iraq in 2014. The bodies of many of those killed still lie in mass graves.

More than six years later, mass graves containing the remains of Yazidi victims are still being found. The most recent exhumation took place in the Yazidi villages of Kocho and Solagh in October 2019.

Kocho, where Murad is from, is home to the largest number of Yazidi mass graves in the Shingal area. In Kocho alone, hundreds of men, adolescent boys, and older women were killed in August 2014, while more than 700 women and children were seized and taken to other ISIS-held areas.

As part of the exhumation process, around 20 mass graves have been exhumed in the Shingal area, the remains of those found sent to Baghdad for DNA analysis and identification.

Murad was received on Tuesday by Iraqi president Barham Salih discussed “the urgent need to overcome political and administrative obstacles that prevent justice for victims and families, as well as obstacles that prevent their return home", according to an Iraqi presidency statement.

Her meetings with the Iraqi and Kurdistan Region presidents come days after a bill in parliament that would offer reparations to survivors of the genocide failed to make the quorum needed to be voted on.

The Yazidi Female Survivors Bill, which has languished in parliament for nearly two years without a vote, guarantees job opportunities to survivors of the ISIS group by allocating them 2 percent of jobs in Iraq’s public sector, along with a fixed salary and land, according to previously released details.

Introduced to parliament in April 2019, the bill has had two readings, but a special parliamentary committee was formed to amend the draft legislation after pushback.

Baghdad reached a deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) over the governance and security of Shingal, which is disputed between the two governments, on October 9.

According to the agreement, security in the area is Baghdad's responsibility. The federal government will have to establish a new armed force recruited from the local population and expel fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and their affiliated groups, according to agreement details released in October.

Implementation of the agreement began in November with the deployment of some 6,000 federal police to parts of Shingal that border Syria.

However, a commander of Shingal's Ezidkhan Protection Force, part of the Peshmerga,told Rudaw English last month that several different armed groups remain in the area.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/03022021

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Baghdad holds ceremony for ISIS victims

A funeral procession for 104 Yazidis who were killed by the Islamic State group (ISIS) in Shingal in 2014, was held in Baghdad on Thursday



The first such commemoration for of victims exhumed from mass graves. President Barham Salih, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Khadimi and First Deputy Speaker of Parliament Hassan al-Kaabi were in attendance, along with a number of military and security leaders and members of the Yazidi community.

The ceremony took place in Martyr's Memorial Square in Baghdad, were military vehicles carried the victims' bodies wrapped in the Iraqi flag in a funeral procession.

The 104 victims will be returned to the village of Kocho, in the Shingal region, for burial this weekend.

"On February 6th, members of the Yazidi community will gather for a burial ceremony to honor the deceased. Over six years after the genocide, the families of Kocho will finally be able to lay some of their loved ones to rest," read a statement from Nobel Laureate and Yazidi survivor Nadia Murad.

She called on the Iraqi government and international community to act on the evidence of the genocide that was committed against Yazidis, by "prosecuting ISIS perpetrators for their crimes against humanity."

Kocho was the site one of the worst atrocities committed against the community, with nearly all the village’s boys and men shot dead, and the young women and girls sold into slavery, including Murad.

"The victims will be buried in the village of Kocho, which was the scene of a terrorist crime of ISIS that embodied the bloodshed of ISIS," President Salih tweeted. "What happened to our sons and daughters from different religions and sects is a wound on the whole nation, and victory for the victims is the state's duty, to do justice to them."

The bodies of the 104 victims were exhumed under the coordination of the United Nations mission investigating the crimes of ISIS in Iraq, UNITAD.

Amal Clooney, legal representative of Yazidi victims, welcomed the UN investigation and the burial as an “important step.”

"Although I represent Yazidi victims in a handful of cases before national courts, there is still no global legal strategy on the prosecution of ISIS crimes. Investigations led by the UN are an important step; but they have not led to an international trial. And around 2,800 Yazidis are still missing," she said in a published statement.

There is legislation currently in parliament that seeks to provide reparations for female genocide survivors. But just days before the funeral ceremony, the legislature failed to make the quorum needed to vote on the bill.

The deputy parliament speaker said they are working to preserve the rights of all components by enacting fair legislation that affirms complete equality among all people, state media reported on Thursday.

"The enactment of the Yazidi Female Survivors law should go ahead in the coming period to guarantee their rights and integrate them into society, along with rehabilitating the infrastructure of their liberated areas," said Kaabi, a day after he sponsored a ceremony to honor Yazidi women survivors.

President Salih met this week with Nadia Murad in Baghdad. He called on parliament "to expedite the legislation of the Yazidi female survivors law by the House of Representatives, and expand it to include other affected segments."

The Yazidi Female Survivors Bill, which has languished in parliament for nearly two years without a vote, guarantees job opportunities to survivors of ISIS by allocating them two percent of jobs in Iraq's public sector, along with a fixed salary and land.

More than 6,000 women and children were taken captive by ISIS when it took over the Yazidi heartland of Shingal in August 2014, committing genocide against the ethno-religious community.

Thousands are still missing

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/040220214

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Mount Shingal IDPs say they’ve been abandoned

Yazidi residents of Sardasht camp on Mount Sinjar (Shingal) are struggling in the bitter winter cold



Camp residents say they have been abandoned by both the government and aid agencies since the Iraqi government announced in October 2020 that all camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) would have to be shut by the end of the year. Many say their homes in Shingal are in ruins, and that they can’t afford to rebuild them. Shingal is lacking in basic services and in security.

From 2014 – when ISIS took over swathes of northern and western Iraq – there were 174 IDP camps in Iraq, according to a spokesperson for Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displacement.

The spokesperson said on Wednesday that 146 camps have been shut so far, and 28 remain left open – 26 of which are in the Kurdistan Region.

Link to Article - Video:

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/030220211