Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

[Anthea]

Human Rights Council

Human rights situations that require the Council’s attention

“They came to destroy”: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis

Summary:

ISIS has committed the crime of genocide as well as multiple crimes against humanity and war crimes against the Yazidis, thousands of whom are held captive in the Syrian Arab Republic where they are subjected to almost unimaginable horrors.

The present report, which focuses on violations committed in Syria, is based on 45 interviews with survivors, religious leaders, smugglers, activists, lawyers, medical personnel, and journalists.

Considerable documentary material was used to corroborateinformation collected by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic.

ISIS has sought to destroy the Yazidis through killings; sexual slavery, enslavement, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and forcible transfer causing serious bodily and mental harm; the infliction of conditions of life that bring about a slow death; the imposition of measures to prevent Yazidi children from being born, including forced conversion of adults, the separation of Yazidi men and women, and mental trauma; and the transfer of Yazidi children from their own
families and placing them with ISIS fighters, thereby cutting them off from beliefs and practices of their own religious
community, and erasing their identity as Yazidis.

The public statements and conduct of ISIS and its fighters clearly demonstrate that ISIS intended to destroy the Yazidis of Sinjar, composing the majority of the world’s Yazidi population, in whole or in part. In the present report, the Commission has made wide-ranging recommendations to the United Nations, the Governments of Syria and Iraq, and the wider international community concerning the protection of and care for the Yazidi community of Sinjar.

While noting States’ obligations under the Genocide Convention, the Commission repeated its call for the Security Council to refer urgently the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court, or o establish an ad hoc tribunal with relevant geographic and temporal jurisdiction.

Over 3,200 Yazidi women and children are still held by ISIS. Most are in Syria where Yazidi females continue to be sexually enslaved and Yazidi boys, indoctrinated, trained and used in hostilities. Thousands of Yazidi men and boys are missing.

The genocide of the Yazidis is on-going.

Link to full report:

http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies ... P.2_en.pdf

[Anthea]

UN: Yezidi ‘genocide has occurred and is ongoing’

A special UN commission charged with investigating violations committed by the Islamic State against the Yezidi minority in Syria has concluded that genocide occurred.

“Genocide has occurred and is ongoing,” said Paulo Pinheiro, chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry. “ISIS has subjected every Yezidi woman, child or man that it has captured to the most horrific of atrocities.”

The Commission was mandated to examine ISIS actions against the Yezidi people in Syria, where thousands of women and girls remain captive of the terrorist group. Its report, ‘They Came to Destroy: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis,’ was released on Thursday.

The report, based on interviews with survivors, medical personnel, journalists, smugglers, religious leaders, and activists, as well as extensive documentary information, concludes that ISIS committed genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

“ISIS has sought to erase the Yazidis through killings; sexual slavery, enslavement, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and forcible transfer causing serious bodily and mental harm; the infliction of conditions of life that bring about a slow death; the imposition of measures to prevent Yazidi children from being born, including forced conversion of adults, the separation of Yazidi men and women, and mental trauma; and the transfer of Yazidi children from their own families and placing them with ISIS fighters, thereby cutting them off from beliefs and practices of their own religious community”, reads the report.

The genocide of the Yezidis has been widely condemned as the UN Commission joins the US government, the UK House of Commons, and the European Parliament in formal recognition of the crime.

With the acknowledgement that Islamic State violations of the Yezidi community are genocide, a next step is to ensure that nations have fulfilled their obligation to prevent the crime.

Under the Genocide Convention, states are obliged to take all measures possible to prevent or end the genocide.

The UN Commission, in their report, asserts that further investigation is needed to determine whether or not nations, including Iraq and Syria as well as the international community, fulfilled their obligations under the Genocide Convention.

Of particular concern for the Commission, “is an examination of the circumstances of the withdrawal of the Peshmerga from the Sinjar region as the ISIS attack commenced. Further, there is as yet no information available concerning any steps being taken by the Governments of Syria and Iraq to free Yazidi women and children being held by ISIS on their territory.”

Another challenge now facing the international community is how to bring the perpetrators to justice. The stumbling block is jurisdiction.

“The International Criminal Court (ICC) is, at present, the only international criminal tribunal that could have jurisdiction over ISIS crimes against the Yazidis,” the Commission’s report states.

For the ICC to open a case against ISIS, the matter would have to be referred to the court by one of the party states, meaning Iraq or Syria, or the UN Security Council. Neither Iraq nor Syria, however, is party to the Rome Statute, which is the treaty governing the ICC.

The only option for referral, therefore, is from the Security Council, which already failed to pass a resolution referring the Syria matter to the ICC after Russia and China vetoed the matter on May 22, 2014.

Trying another tactic, Yezidi advocacy NGOs Yazda and the Free Yezidi Foundation have argued that the ICC has personal jurisdiction to try individual members of the Islamic State who are citizens of countries that are a party to the Rome Statute. Individual foreign fighters could, they assert, be charged and tried.

Some individual perpetrators have been identified by the UN Commission, which says it has shared names and details with some national authorities.

Yazda and the Free Yezidi Foundation also argue that the identification of individual perpetrators of the genocide is not necessary in the preliminary stages of an ICC investigation, which can build a specific case based first on a general situation.

“As such it is sufficient at this stage that the communication presents serious information demonstrating that incidents of crimes committed are within the material jurisdiction of the Court and were committed by a group including individuals who were nationals of State Parties - irrespective of the capacity in which they were acting,” reads their September 2015 submission to the ICC.

The ICC has not publicly responded to the submission and has not yet formally opened an investigation into the Yezidi genocide matter.

Yazda, along with Nadia Murad, a Yezidi survivor of ISIS, recently announced that they are being represented by human rights lawyer Amal Clooney in an attempt to bring the case to the ICC.

Resolving the matter of jurisdiction will likely be a lengthy process if the UN Security Council does not make a referral to the court.

An alternative option floated by the UN Commission is the establishment of “an ad hoc tribunal to prosecute the myriad of violations of international law committed during the non-international armed conflict.”

Barring an international option, the UN Commission believes that justice for the Yezidi community will most likely be found in domestic courts. There is a precedent for this.

On May 30, a special court established within the domestic courts of Senegal issued a guilty verdict against former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré on the charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and torture. Many in Africa believe that war crimes suspects from African nations should be prosecuted on the continent, rather than at the ICC, which they believe is biased against African nations.

A similar solution may be found for the prosecution of Islamic State leaders and militants.

“[W]ith no path to international criminal justice available, it is likely that the first such prosecution of ISIS crimes against the Yazidis will take place in a domestic jurisdiction,” stated the UN Commission, noting the need for states to enact laws against genocide so that individual nations can try Islamic State militants in domestic courts.

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/16062016

[Anthea]

The following are comments posted beneath the preceding article and well worth reading

kurt basar | 11 hours ago
The E-Zidies who are true believers of the Truth (Hade) and his angels have very sad history, because of this fabricated Muslim religion of the Bedouin Arab camel shepherd, which is a stone age savages law for to tame the Bedouin Arabs 1400 years ago. As long as this backward religion & their brainwashed androids exist, there will no peace for the E-Zidies as well as for others, question is for how long the civilized nation are going to tolerate these criminal minded androids and their supporters? god help the E-zidies,

Sluth | 9 hours ago
" prosecution of Islamic State leaders and militants " ??? My key interest would be in seeing the prosecution of those politicians, financiers and religious leaders in surrounding countries who provided guns, ammunition, bomb making materials money and "moral" guidance to to ISIS foot soldiers with full knowledge that the Yazidis and others were being being exterminated. It goes much further than that of course. I can't quite comprehend some of the execution videos of young children or of people being burned to death as they pray. Images of a six year old girl in pink frilly party dress but without a head don't go away.This is surreal, indeed far more frightening than an actual shoot out that I once found myself in. What I am getting at is that the root causes of this evil needs to be brought to account .... not just idiot foot soldiers.

dlxuaz | 9 hours ago
Up until now the Kurdistan regional government has taken most of the burden, giving the Ezidi community shelter, liberating their areas from IS, giving humanitarian aid, paying to buy back girls/women who are still held captive, and also training and arming Ezidi units. The PKK also has done more than their share, they were first on the scene and saved 20 thousand of them, they kept ISIS back and also armed and trained some Ezidi units. All this time the UN and the big powers have done nothing but talk talk and talk about what happened to them with the occasional ceremonial prise given to some poor Ezidi victim in a fancy banquet where they promise them all kind support that turn out to be nothing but hot air in the end.

[Anthea]

ISIS fighters should be prosecuted for war crimes against Yezidis
Human Rights Watch
Reporting by: Ali Issa and Wladimir van Wilgenburg

The Iraqi government and Kurdish government should prosecute ISIS fighters for war crimes against the Yezidi minority, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.

“Yezidi victims of human rights abuses have a right to justice, not just government declarations with no consequences,” said Skye Wheeler, a researcher for HRW’s Women’s Rights Division.

According to HRW, the Iraqi central government and Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), hundreds of Yezidis have sought safety, and several ISIS fighters are in custody.

But Human Rights Watch says so far no criminal justice authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan or the rest of Iraq are investigating or prosecuting ISIS members for war crimes or crimes against humanity.

According to HRW, letting grave crimes against Yezidis go unpunished is a stain on the Iraqi government, and countries that vowed to protect groups like the Yezidis against threats of extermination and that have committed themselves to supporting justice for grave abuses whenever and wherever they occur.

A report released on June 16, by the UN-mandated Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Syrian Arab Republic, crimes by ISIS against Yezidis after they overrun Sinjar in August 2014 amount to genocide.

Also the Dutch NGO PAX in a report released last week on the situation of Sinjar [Shingal district] after ISIS, called on the Iraqi government to increase the transparency on screening processes, criminal investigations and (military) trials of individuals suspected of ISIS related crimes.

“Multiple crimes, of many different natures, were committed in Sinjar, and must all be addressed through appropriate justice frameworks,” PAX said.

In August 2014, ISIS radicals took over the Yezidi region of Shingal (Sinjar) in northern Iraq, causing a mass displacement of nearly 400,000 people to Duhok and Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. Tens of thousands of Yezidis remained trapped in Mount Sinjar, suffering mass killings, kidnappings and rape cases, according to local and military sources. Also, more than 3000 Yezidi girls have been taken by the radical group as sex slaves.

On November 13, the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraqi Kurdistan, backed by an air cover from the US-led coalition forces, announced the liberation of the entire Yezidi district of Shingal in the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh after fierce battles with ISIS extremists. The Kurdish forces have recently discovered more than five mass graves in the Yezidi region, where hundreds of Yezidi civilians have been summarily executed and buried by ISIS jihadis. Yet, thousands of Yezidi women remain in ISIS captivity after being sold as sex slaves across the group’s territory in Iraq and Syria.

ISIS burned Yezidi girls to death

Extremist jihadis of the Islamic State (ISIS) on Thursday 3 June, 2016, executed 19 Yezidi girls by burning them to death, activists and eyewitnesses reported.

The victims, who had been taken by ISIS jihadis as sex slaves, were placed in iron cages in central Mosul and burned to death in front of hundreds of people.

“They were punished for refusing to have sex with ISIS militants,” local media activist Abdullah al-Malla told ARA News.

“The 19 girls were burned to death, while hundreds of people were watching. Nobody could do anything to save them from the brutal punishment,” an eyewitness told ARA News in Mosul.

The United Nations has cited allegations, based on Yezidi officials’ estimates, that as many as 3,500 people remained in ISIS captivity as of October 2015.

“Many of the abuses, including torture, sexual slavery, and arbitrary detention, would be war crimes if committed in the context of the armed conflict, or crimes against humanity if they were part of ISIS policy during a systematic or widespread attack on the civilian population,” the HRW said. “The abuses against Yezidi women and girls documented by Human Rights Watch, including the practice of abducting women and girls and forcibly converting them to Islam and/or forcibly marrying them to ISIS members, may be part of a genocide against Yezidis.”

http://aranews.net/2016/06/human-rights ... s-yezidis/

[Anthea]

Yezidi mayor confident world community will recognize ISIS crimes as genocide

The mayor of the Yezidi city of Shingal says he is confident that the international community will recognize the ISIS atrocity as genocide against Yezidi people in the near future.

Mahma Khalil, who recently visited the United Nations, told Rudaw on Tuesday that most member states agreed that the mass killings against Yezidis should be recognized as genocide under international law and legal actions taken against its perpetrators.

“I think it is a question of time when the international community will directly address the mass slaughter as genocide,” Mahma Khalil said, adding that the absolute majority of the UN member states had already addressed the ISIS assault as genocide.

A special UN commission concluded on June 15 after lengthy investigations that the violations committed by the ISIS militants against the Yezidi minority in Iraq amount to genocide.

“ISIS has sought to erase the Yezidis through killings; sexual slavery, enslavement, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and forcible transfer causing serious bodily and mental harm,” the UN report said.

According to official government reports nearly 6000 Yezidi men, women and children were abducted in the first days of ISIS attack on Shingal in August last year.

Many of the female prisoners were transferred to Syria where they were treated as war trophies, eyewitnesses have told Human Rights’ Watch.

Iraq is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has effectively made it impossible for the world body to take legal actions against mass crimes committed inside that country.

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/05072016

[Anthea]

Video ‘shows ISIS fighters laughing and joking while a woman is heard screaming as she is being raped nearby’: Claims after footage ‘is retrieved from dead Islamic State militant’s phone’

Video captured on phone of dead terrorist who was slayed in Shirqat, Iraq
ISIS fighter sits playing with friend's underwear who is busy raping woman
Two fat men laugh and joke on the sofa while wailing can be heard nearby
Man jokes about stealing friend's clothes after he had asked for his slave

Harrowing footage from a dead terrorist's phone appears to show ISIS fighters laughing and joking while a woman can be heard being raped in the background.

One suspected ISIS fighter sits in the middle of the floor playing with his friend's underwear and sipping from a small glass in what appears to be a living room.

Two far affiliates sit on a large sofa laughing at the seated man as he gestures with the clothing and a fourth man can be seen milling around in the room.

All the while, a woman can be heard wailing nearby, but the pictures are not picked up on video.

Speaking in an Iraqi accent, the man sitting on the floor says: 'I went to Abu Aziz when he shouting for his slave and I stole his clothes - now I came here and now he has no clothes.

'I arrested his clothes (joke).

'Now I'll let him go out of the house naked with no clothes. This video is for my love Abu Aziz.'

His fat friends sat on the sofa say, 'don't film, don't film', while laughing.

The video was captured on the phone of a dead ISIS terrorist, according to Radio Sawa, who say the clothes belong to the seated man's friend who is carrying out the rape.

As well as the distressing screams of the woman, commands can be heard coming from a walkie-talkie which is sat on the floor next to the terrorist who is sat cross-legged on the floor with a tray in front of him.

It is understood the slayed terrorist died in Shirqat near Mosul, Iraq.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... mailonline

[Anthea]

World's largest Yazidi temple under construction in Armenia

A huge Yazidi temple is under construction in a small Armenian village, intended as a symbol of resilience for a persecuted religious tradition.

The temple is being built in Aknalich, about 35km from Yerevan, the Armenian capital. Seven domes will surround a central arched roof, crowned with a gold-plated sun. At 25m high, it will be built from Armenian granite and Iranian marble and house a 200-square-metre prayer hall.

The complex will also include a conference hall, seminary and museum.

Named Quba Mere Diwane, this will be the largest Yazidi temple in the world, although there are relatively few contenders. The project is being funded by Mirza Sloian, a Yazidi businessman based in Moscow, according to EurasiaNet, and is scheduled to be completed next year.

“This temple is important for us because our community is facing extinction. Our community is displaced around the world, and we need temples in each place for our children to keep their culture and identity,” said Ahmed Burjus of the UK branch of Yazda, a global Yazidi organisation.

The complex in Aknalich is not intended to overshadow Lalish, the most holy Yazidi temple, about 36 miles north of Mosul in northern Iraq. Followers of the Yazidi faith are expected to make a pilgrimage to Lalesh once in their lifetime.

“There will only ever be one Lalish,” Khdr Hajoian, vice-president of the Yazidi National Union, told EurasiaNet.

Yazidis are the largest minority group in Armenia, with a population of about 35,000, although many have left or are leaving to find work elsewhere, particularly in Russia.

They originated in eastern Turkey and northern Iraq, but many were killed or driven out of Turkey during the bloody rule of the Ottoman Empire. Yazidis describe themselves as “a people of 72 genocides”.

The most recent onslaught was in northern Iraq – until recently, home to 90% of Yazidis – in 2014. Islamic State killed thousands of Yazidis in and around Sinjar, abducted young girls and women to be used as sex slaves, forced people to convert to Islam, and drove an estimated 50,000 into the mountains where they were besieged.

In June, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said Islamic State was committing genocide against the Yazidis of northern Iraq.

Thousands of Yazidis now live in squalid refugee camps in northern Iraq and Turkey, or have scattered across Europe.

“People are suffering from psychological and medical problems in the camps, with no work and no future,” said Burjus. “Even in Europe, no country has recognised Yazidis as a distinctive group. Our fate is not in our hands.”

Germany is home to western Europe’s largest diaspora community. According to Burjus, there are fewer than 700 Yazidis in the UK. European governments classify Yazidis as Kurds, he said.

The Yazidi faith is derived from Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam. They have been denounced as infidels by Islamic extremists, and unfairly accused of being devil-worshippers.

They do not accept converts, and Yazidis are not permitted to marry non-Yazidis or even Yazidis from a different caste.

As well as being persecuted for their religious beliefs, Yazidi communities are dispersing because of economic pressures.

“Yazidis are not well placed to handle the challenges they face,” said Christine Allison, professor of Kurdish studies at Exeter university. “They are fragmented, vulnerable and face big socio-economic difficulties.

“There is a risk of Yazidis not surviving – or at least being a much smaller community within a generation.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... are_btn_tw

[Anthea]

3 AUGUST RIP

For 2 years Yazidi women and children have been help captive of the Islamic State

NOBODY HAS DONE ANYTHING TO RESCUE THEM

The US and the many members of the coalition

The might of the UN

The combined forces of NATO

NONE OF THEM HAS DONE ANYTHING TO RESCUE THE YAZIDIS

The aforementioned have been playing war games in Syria and Iraq

Probably killing countless THOUSANDS of innocent people

Only nobody is actually willing to admit how many are being slaughtered

US, Europe, Saudi Arabia and countless other countries are pouring countless BILLIONS in support to both Iraq and Syria

Problem is most of that support goes towards supporting and arming the rebels

Many cities and towns have been destroyed

Coalition members have plenty of money to pay for weapons to kill innocent people and destroy towns and cities

Yet they never pay to rebuild or help people to rebuild their homes and their lives

UN, NATO, US and coalition just want to play stupid war games

2 YEARS ON NONE OF THEM HAS DONE ANYTHING TO RESCUE YAZIDIS

[Anthea]

Two Years Since the Massacre Few Yazidis Return to Sinjar

Despite Kurdish forces retaking Sinjar and its neighboring towns in northern Iraq last November, few of the region's historic residents are returning. Most fear a looming reprisal by the ISIS militants that captured the city two years ago.

A dust storm lashed the mostly uninhabited city just south of the eponymous mountains that has been in existence as a settlement since at least the 4th century.

But since the so-called Islamic State took over Sinjar, located in northwestern Iraq, on August 3, 2014, it has been cleansed of a majority of its civilians, most of whom belong to the ancient Yazidi religious minority group that has called these mountains home for over eight centuries.

‘‘We can’t go to the front right now, and it’s best not to go out at all,’’ a member of the Asayish, the security forces and primary intelligence agency for Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), told Refugees Deeply.

“They shoot at us whenever they think coalition aircraft will have a harder time targeting them, due to weather conditions. I’ve received information they will be attacking soon,” the officer added.

Deeming Yazidis “non-believers,” ISIS imprisoned civilians who failed to escape during its attack two years ago and killed at least 5,000 others, leaving the bodies in mass graves. The Sinjar massacre, where men were rounded up and shot and their wives and children abducted, raped and tortured, has left a harrowing imprint in the minds of residents who fled.

In November 2015, the city was retaken by a massive operation involving Kurdish and Yazidi forces backed by the U.S.-led coalition. But with the frontline only a few miles away, very few of the town’s Yazidi inhabitants have returned.

Much of the city has been destroyed, with sandbagged entrances to tunnels running under former homes, covered markets turned into crumpled masses of rafters and abandoned wares and rubble awaiting removal. Graffiti extolling the virtues and might of the ISIS “jihadists” remain on many of the buildings.

When walking around the streets, there is no semblance of home or community. Desolation and tension hang heavy in the air.

Many of the Yazidis who had been living here have left for Europe or are still in the hands of ISIS. Others remain in IDP camps in the areas controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Getting to Sinjar entails a few hours’ travel after passing through a military checkpoint that requires special authorization. After passing through, one option is a road winding through mountains still scattered with internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, tents and children running around. The alternate route is menacingly close to Mosul, pockmarked with crater-holes left by bombs and sporadic triangular signposts to warn drivers.

After spending a night in the city, during which rockets hit outlying areas in three places, Refugees Deeply spoke to a man from the area named Fares Elias. The 27-year-old was trying to connect his welding shop to electricity from a utility pole that was among those still standing.

No services have been restored. But various security forces present in the city – including the Asayish, the Peshmerga and the PKK-linked Yezidi Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) – have generators and the Peshmerga provide water to the few inhabitants that have returned.

Elias’ family’s home is the only inhabited residence on the street. A protective wall prevents those on the street from knowing whether anyone is inside the house, a feature that saved the family when they were trapped for a week after the city was captured by ISIS in August 2014.

‘‘Not even our neighbors who joined ISIS knew we were here,’’ Elias’ mother, 56-year-old Manje Murad, explained, adding that they didn’t go out at all and baked bread in the basement to prevent the smell from wafting too far.

Their chance for escape came when an ISIS position was struck about a week after the group took over the city, which had nearly 90,000 inhabitants in 2013. There are no reliable figures for the number of people who have returned.

‘‘We gave the children Valium (tranquilizers) and left, carrying them and walking through the night, through a valley and up a mountain, trying to be as quiet as possible,’’ added Elias’ father, Kheiri.

He said that they were later helped by Kurdish armed groups to get to Malikiyah in neighboring Syria and then later to Zakho, in northern Iraq.

‘‘As soon as we heard that [our] town had been retaken, some of us came back. We now take turns being here,’’ Kheiri explained.

‘‘But for now, it’s not safe. One night, six rockets fell in the area within 20 minutes. I didn’t sleep until 2 a.m., waiting to see if we should leave [again],” Elias pointed out.

Desperate for outside assistance, some of the more prominent members of the Yazidi community have contributed their own money, resources and time. However, they express doubts that any large-scale return will be immediate or certain, especially without substantial international support.

Vian Dakhil, a Yazidi MP who became well known in the wake of the conflict-induced displacement for using her own money to ‘‘buy the freedom’’ of several women taken as sex slaves by ISIS, spoke to Refugees Deeply at her home in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi-Kurdistan.

She claimed that she had had to pay as much as $20,000 for some families, and that she had seen girls as young as nine years old who had been raped.

Some of the Yazidi survivors of sexual violence have been sent to Germany for medical and psychological rehabilitation, and Dakhil said that many of women and girls say now that they would like to return afterwards.

Refugees Deeply also met with Mirza Dinnayi, head of the Germany-based humanitarian organization Air Bridge Iraq and a Yazidi community leader, when he was in Erbil.

He said that approximately 1,100 Yazidi girls and women were taken to Germany for treatment and that ‘‘many of them have lost most of their families’’ – thus, ‘‘even if a girl wants to come back, it would be to a camp, alone.”

Dinnayi, whose organization was tasked with interviewing the women and girls prior to their transfer to Germany, said that returning to the camps with no prospects for the future was not a feasible option.

Khidher Domle, another prominent member of the Yazidi community who has written a book about the mass kidnapping and enslaving of Yezidi girls called ‘‘The Black Death,” explained that the offensives that liberated ISIS-held cities – such as Shaddadi in northeastern Syria – led to many Yazidi families losing contact with family members in captivity.

Over 3,000 Yazidis remain in ISIS hands

Domle added that several hundred boys have reportedly been taken to ISIS training camps in both Syria and Iraq and are currently being “radicalized.”

“They are being taught to kill their own family members,’’ he claimed.

Sheikh Ido Baba, a brother of Baba Sheikh, the Yazidi spiritual leader, explained that there are hundreds of thousands of Yazidis living away from their homes.

“Close to Erbil, close to Dohuk, some in Zakho – everywhere,” he specified, adding that it is not just the Yezidis who are leaving.

“The Christians, the Muslims and the Kurds’’ also want to go, he said.

“Some 40 percent of the area around Sinjar is still in the hands of Daesh,’’ he explained, using the Arabic description for ISIS. “And the people here are afraid of the Daesh mentality, which is still here, among the people living here.’’

Back in Sinjar, one of the Asayish security officers recollected how the town had once been a place of refuge for Iraqis fleeing other cities.

“First in 2004, when the Sunnis escaped’’ to Sinjar following the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, he said. “And then in 2014 when the Shia [fled an ISIS onslaught].’’

“The schools [in Sinjar] were filled with IDPs then,’’ he recalled.

For now, the schools and most of the homes in the city are empty and will remain so, as long as the possibility of an ISIS take-over remains a threat.

Meanwhile, the U.N. officially recognized the Yazidis as “victims of genocide’’ based on their findings from the Sinjar massacre and related events, which were released in a June 2016 report.

https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/art ... -to-sinjar

[Anthea]

Seeking Justice for IS's Yazidi victims
A group of lawyers is trying to get justice for thousands of Yazidis
killed and enslaved in iraq by the so-called islamic state

phpBB [video]

[Anthea]

Yazidi genocide 2 years ago

Thousand of Yazidis were horrifcially butchered by the so-called Islamic State

Thousand of Yazidi women and female children are still in the hands of ISIS and have been left to suffer rape and torture every single day for the past 2 years

Thousand of male children are still in the hands of ISIS and most are being indoctrinated into ISIS way of thinking forcing them to train to be monsters

BUT

Forcing is the wrong word

These boys know first-hand that

THE WORLD HATES YAZIDIS

It is probably easier for the sons of the Yazidis to except their mothers and sisters enslavement - than it is for them to except the fact that for 2 years the world has ignored them - these boys will be resentful and as such easy pray for ISIS indoctrination

phpBB [video]

[Anthea]

Very Upsetting Footage

phpBB [video]

[Anthea]

Thousands of Yazidis missing or captive
two years after start of 'genocide' - U.N.

Thousands of Yazidis are being held captive by Islamic State in Syria where many are used for sexual slavery or forced to fight for the group, the United Nations said on Wednesday, on the second anniversary of what investigators termed a genocide.

A U.N.-appointed commission of independent war crimes investigators said in June that Islamic State was committing genocide against the Yazidis, a religious community of 400,000 people in northern Iraq, beginning with an attack on their city of Sinjar on Aug. 3, 2014.

Yazidis' beliefs combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions and they are considered infidels by the hardline Sunni Islamist militants.

The U.N. said most of the captives have been taken to neighboring Syria "where Yazidi women and girls continue to be sexually enslaved and Yazidi boys indoctrinated, trained and used in hostilities."

Around 3,200 Yazidi women and girls are being held captive, and thousands of men and boys are missing, the U.N. said.

The designation of genocide, rare under international law, would mark the first recognized genocide carried out by non-state actors, rather than a state or paramilitaries acting on its behalf.

Historical victims of genocide include Armenians in 1915, Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994 and Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-midea ... SKCN10E12P

[Anthea]

'They destroyed us': Yazidi survivors rebuild lives after horror of IS

Trapped in the house of her Islamic State enslaver, Nadia would hide when she wanted to pray towards the sun, despite being forced to convert to Islam. Today, the 34-year-old Yazidi spends as much time as possible outside her tent so she can enjoy the warmth of the sun, which she has had tattooed on her right hand as a symbol of her millennial religion.

For the first time in two years, Nadia is a free woman.

“Our life has totally changed," Nadia told Middle East Eye. "We used to be a happy family." Raed, her six-year-old son, sits on her lap as she speaks outside a makeshift shelter she has had to build herself.

Nadia now lives with her child and her sister-in-law’s family just outside the Khanke camp for displaced Yazidis in Dohuk, northern Iraq, two years after IS launched a campaign to eradicate the community and captured thousands as slaves.

“He was just a normal kid before," Nadia said of her son. "But during his captivity he totally changed. He was brainwashed." Raed, who was only four when he was taken by IS along with his mother, still acts as if he was living in the “caliphate”, where he was told that his native language is not spoken in heaven.

“When we ask him something in Kurdish he doesn’t answer so we have to speak to him in Arabic,” his mother explained. Just a week ago Raed, who sometimes behaves violently since his release, still referred to members of IS as “friends.”

'I am an adult but they still successfully brainwashed me'

Of Nadia's four children, Raed is the only one who is free. Her daughter is still a captive in IS-held territory: her two other sons and husband may have succumbed to the same fate as many other male Yazidis and be buried in a mass grave.

While thousands were killed, about 2,600 abducted Yazidis managed to escape between October 2014 and now, according to figures provided by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). But for most, freedom is only the first step toward rehabilitation.

“I am an adult but they still successfully brainwashed me," Nadia said, looking at her son. "They changed my mind. When I was in captivity, I thought I would never be the same."
UN: IS committing genocide against Yazidis

The Yazidi community, which draws some of its beliefs from the pre-Islamic religions of ancient Persia, considers Tawusi Melek, the "Peacock Angel," as a central figure to their faith.

But IS sees him as an equivalent to Satan. Regarded by the IS fighters to be “devil worshippers” and infidels, many Yazidis were killed and possibly buried in as many as 35 mass graves. Thousands more were enslaved while at least 400,000 had to flee when IS started attacking Mount Sinjar (Shingal), home to the majority of the world’s Yazidis, in the early hours of 3 August 2014. The Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who were guarding the region fled instead of defending their positions, abandoning the Yazidis to their fate.

An overview of Khanke camp in Dohuk, Iraq, where nearly 17,000 people live. (Sebastian Castelier)

An overview of Khanke camp in Dohuk, Iraq, where nearly 17,000 people live (Sebastian Castelier)

In June, a UN-mandated human rights inquiry concluded that IS is committing genocide against Yazidis that amounts to crimes against humanity and war crimes.

“The genocide of the Yazidis is on-going,” the report noted, adding that “over 3,200 Yazidi women and children are still held by ISIS. Most are in Syria where Yazidi females continue to be sexually enslaved and Yazidi boys, indoctrinated, trained and used in hostilities.”

Nadia and her family were captured one Sunday morning when IS fighters swept across the border from Syria into Iraq and seized her village. They managed to escape the first assault, but were eventually taken hours later: that was the last time she saw her husband and her other children.

“They ask: ‘Why were so many girls not raped but you were?’ They keep blaming the woman."

That same day, Nadia was sent with Raed and Jalila, her sister-in-law, to Mosul. There she was sold at a slave market to an IS member she regarded as “better than some others”.

Jalila, in contrast, was sent to Syria and forcibly “married” to a Tunisian fighter and, later, two Syrians. Intially she would not wash herself to avoid sexual abuse. But eventually, she recalled, "one [of them] put a gun on my head and told me that if I don’t take a shower he would kill me. I was so scared I did take the shower.

“They forced us, it was not our choice,” she insisted, as if she had to justify herself.

For the last three years Elham Ibrahim, a psychologist, has been treating Yazidis seeking support. She currently works in a clinic inside Khanke camp opened by the Jiyan Foundation for Human Rights.


Children play at a Yazidi temple in June 2016, near Khanke camp in Dohuk, Iraq (MEE/Sebastian Castelier)

Since the attack on Sinjar, Ibrahim said she had witnessed a dramatic increase in the need for her services. “They have nightmares, flashbacks, they can’t sleep or eat properly. Sometimes even [their relatives] don’t recognise them. They see them as strangers.”

Ibrahim is particularly concerned about the women who were enslaved and sexually abused by IS, not only because they have to overcome their trauma, but also because they sometimes have to face the accusing eyes of their own family in a region where rape survivors can be seen as culprits rather than victims.

“They ask: ‘Why were so many girls not raped but you were?’ They keep blaming the woman. They say it was her fault, they say she liked it,” said Ibrahim, before adding that fortunately “many families accept it and have no problem with it.”

Ibrahim is hopeful but realistic and knows that more remains to be done before a sexually abused Yazidi woman can rebuild her life. “Without treatment she might very well kill herself,” she said, adding that some of her patients had attempted suicide.
'How can we ever be like before?'

Jalila’s mother, the only member of the family who was not kidnapped by IS, welcomed her daughter home with relief but also sorrow: Jihane knew her daughter had changed. When Nadia later escaped with Raed, Jihane recognised the same lifeless eyes.
Life inside a tent at Sharia Camp, Duhok, Iraq, home to an estimated 19,000 people. (Sebastian Castelier)

Life inside a tent at Sharia Camp, Duhok, Iraq, home to an estimated 19,000 people (Sebastian Castelier)

All of Jihane's 10 children were captured but for now Jalila is the only one who came back. Yazidis have been persecuted for centuries, but Jihane is in no doubt that her community has never suffered atrocities on such a large scale before.

“I don’t believe the Yazidis will ever be like before. They destroyed us. How can we ever be like before? Just at look at us,” the matriarch raged before adding that it is “the worst genocide” her community has ever endured.

“When before were women sold, kids beheaded and families destroyed?" she almost yelled. "Never. It never happened this way before. It cannot be worse!”

'When before were women sold, kids beheaded and families destroyed?'

A common claim among the Yazidis in Iraq is that their community has gone through numerous "firmamat", a term they coined and the translation of which, in this instance, would be "genocides”.

Mélisande Genat, a PhD candidate in History at Stanford University who has been conducting field work in Iraq since 2010, said that while the Yazidis were repeatedly targeted under the Ottoman empire and throughout the 20th century, the 2014 operation by IS must be seen as the first attempt to wipe out the entire community from Iraq.
Released by Islamic State in March 2016 after 20 months of detention, Sana lives at Khanke camp in Dohuk, Iraq. (Sebastian Castelier)

Released by Islamic State in March 2016 after 20 months of detention, Sana lives at Khanke camp in Dohuk, Iraq (Sebastian Castelier)

"Yazidi history is replete with massacres, the scale of which may, in fact, sometimes have been exceeded by what happened in 2014," Genat told MEE. But, she explained, the internal dynamics of the Sinjar tribal fabric - alliances and conflicts between Yazidi, Kurdish and Arab tribes, as well as internal dynamics within the Yazidi community - have allowed for the continued presence of the Yazidis in the region of Shingal.

“In 2014, however, it is the first time that the Yazidi community has been targeted as such. Therefore, the term genocide is entirely appropriate."

Jihane has lost many family and friends during the past two years but her attention is now focused on Jalila, Nadia and Raed, who, months after their captivity, are still coping with the trauma.

“They are sad in the bottom of their heart. They are still tired, they are always thinking about their family in captivity,” Jihane said, a white veil covering her silver hair and a dash of hope sparkling in her dark-brown eyes. "They have been affected, but hopefully they will heal.”

The names of Nadia, Raed, Jalila, Jihane and Sana were changed to protect their identity and their relatives still in captivity.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/yazid ... 1898448089

[Anthea]

President Barzani: ‘Build new Shingal beside old city’
(An excellent idea)

The Kurdistan Region president suggested on Wednesday the building of a new city for Sinjar (Shingal) and leaving the old one as a symbol.

Masoud Barzani, the Kurdistan Region President, delivered a speech in Duhok during the commemoration of the second anniversary of the Islamic State (IS) attack on Shingal.

“Two years ago, our people experienced a big catastrophe at the hands of [IS] terrorists; this was not the first atrocity, but I hope it is the last one,” President Barzani stated.

“[IS] did not only come for Shingal, they came to commit atrocities across Kurdistan, they came to invade Kurdistan, but thanks to the brave Peshmerga forces for destroying the IS myth,” Barzani continued.

The President reiterated that the tragedy of the Ezidis was shared with all the people of Kurdistan, stating that “Ezidi girls and women are the symbols of honor.”

President Barzani referred to his conversation with the Ezidi leader following the IS attack on Shingal who feared that Ezidis would fade away.

“I told the Ezidi leader that Ezidis would only fade away when Kurdistan fades away; we will avenge the Ezidis, and we have delivered our pledge with the sacrifice of 500 of our Peshmerga forces,” Barzani added.

Additionally, President Barzani reminded all in attendance that “Peshmerga forces protected Mount Shingal and liberated the city.”

He also stated that it was unfortunate that some tried to misuse the IS attack on Shingal against Peshmerga.

Regarding those who committed the massacre against Ezidis, President Barzani said, “anyone who was with IS, helped or supported IS, would face the same fate as them.”

Moreover, The President suggested the building of a new city next to the old Shingal.

“The old Shingal should remain a symbol and memory for the next generation to know what happened to our people,” he explained.

President Barzani called upon the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to make serious efforts to rebuild the area and increase the level of livelihood for people.

The President concluded by stating that an independent Kurdistan is crucial to prevent the next generation from experiencing similar massacres.

http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/aadb ... =hootsuite