Ten Years After ISIS, Yazidis Work to Reclaim Their Lives
By Kasturi Chakraborty
“They may be defeated for now, but they might come for us again,” whispered a Yazidi woman, her voice trembling with the weight of memories too painful to forget. Her husband and 12-year-old son were brutally murdered by Islamic State (IS) militants right before her eyes. Her trust shattered, she found it hard to rely on anyone, especially since their betrayal came from neighbors who disclosed their non-Muslim beliefs to the militants. The decision by the Syrian regime to enforce Sharia or Islamic personal status laws on the Yazidi minority had rekindled old fears.
Who are the Yazidis?
The Yazidis are an ethno-religious group primarily located in northern Iraq, with significant populations in Syria, Turkey, Armenia, and Georgia. Historically, they have lived in the mountainous regions of Kurdistan, a geographical area spanning parts of modern-day Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran. The largest Yazidi communities today are found in northern Iraq, particularly in the Nineveh Governorate, including the Sinjar and Shekhan districts. In Syria, Yazidis primarily reside in two regions: the Al-Jazira area and Kurd-Dagh. While the exact population numbers are unclear, estimates suggest there are between 10,000 and 50,000 Yazidis in Syria.
Current Concerns
The Justice Ministry’s circular essentially labeled Yazidism as a sect of Islam, stripping it of its independent religious status. This decision, reported by The Syrian Observer, opened old wounds and sparked anxiety within the community.
Speaking on this, the same Yazidi woman who wished to remain anonymous, said, “As if everything that we went through was not enough. They are finishing what militants had started.”
The 2014 Onslaught
With at least 3,000 women and children still missing or held by ISIS, the August 3, 2014 onslaught was just the beginning of a long history of oppression and genocide against this ethnic community practicing a religion with elements from Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism. Men and boys were executed, ripped from their families, indoctrinated, and forced into ISIS training camps. Girls as young as nine and women were kidnapped, sold, sexually enslaved, tortured, and forced to work. “You should become a Muslim or we will kill everyone.” Some recalled how the militants would first examine them carefully and then keep them in captivity, torturing them if they refused to convert.
I was hit, brutalized, and separated from my family but I held the hands of my wife and son tightly as long as I could. I have scars all over my body,
says Suleiman (name changed), adding that the mental trauma is worse than the physical pain.
In an interview, while documenting the sufferings of the Yazidi community, Pari Ibrahim, founder, and executive director of the Free Yazidi Foundation, an NGO based in the Netherlands, mentioned how crimes ISIS committed against Yazidis appear to carry no judicial weight. Other than indicting the perpetrators for terrorism, the government has done nothing. That said, the perpetrators walk free after a couple of years due to lack of evidence. Ibrahim pointed out,
What justice means for us is that our survivors have their day in court. That the survivors can go, point to the perpetrator, whether it’s a man or a woman, and say you did this to me.
Similar sentiments were echoed by Suleiman, who resettled in France. Apart from shooting us point-blank, the militants beheaded and burned us alive, he went on. “With no legal structure in place and more than thousands of Yazidis still missing, justice remains elusive as those who committed these heinous crimes continue to live as if nothing happened,” he added.
It took two years for the independent Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic to determine that “ISIS’s abuse of Yazidis amounts to crimes against humanity and war crimes.” In 2016, the Commission of Inquiry submitted a report, “They Came to Destroy: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis,” where it acknowledged the atrocities as genocide. Despite UN intervention and recognition, Iraq failed to acknowledge these crimes as genocide.
The Struggle to Return
Years on, the exiled hearts of the Yazidis still beat with Sinjar where they have left their blood relations and loved ones. Ramzya (name changed) said.
But how can we go back? There is no security, there are rumors that ISIS is trying to regroup. They destroyed our cultural sites. Sinjar is in shambles and it is that part of the bleeding earth where you can still find rubble strewn with IEDs in some places. There is nothing left for us there.
Though countries offering refuge to the displaced community is welcome, some political analysts believe territory is important. “The most pressing issues here are security and local governance, the absence of both has forced the Yazidis to seek refuge in countries like Germany, France, Canada, or Australia. Speaking of genocide survivors, space and territory are important,” said Siddiq Wahid, Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and historian, adding that there should be concerted efforts from the international community to bring the Yazidis back to where they belong.
When ISIS fighters forcefully occupied the town of Sinjar, almost 200,000 Yazidis fled and took refuge in Mount Sinjar. Many died due to hunger and dehydration and some killed themselves. Some blame both the governments — Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the central Iraqi government’s neglect — for leaving them to die. When the Yazidis were stuck in Sinjar in 2015, both Peshmerga forces (the military forces of Iraqi Kurdistan) and YPG (Syrian Kurdish Forces) came to their rescue. At first, they helped them to escape by opening a corridor between Mount Sinjar and Syria but later withdrew halfway through the fight without any prior warning, which left Yazidis defenseless and vulnerable.
The government does not care because we are a small community. We have to protect ourselves till we can. So, when we were attacked, my parents told me to take my sister and leave for Turkey. My parents along with a brother and two sisters stayed back in Iraq. I live in Germany now. Life is different here but no matter how much we try to escape our past, it catches up with us. It’s been 10 years and I have not seen my family since,
says 23-year-old Salar. Salar is now employed as a hairdresser in Bremen, Germany. He said his father is a doctor and his mother has heart problems. Not being able to be with them makes him anxious about his parents. His sister lives with him and goes to school. He said he had no money or food when he fled and did not eat for three days. “I still get flashbacks of my tormented past,” he added.
According to a 2018 report titled, “Unearthing Atrocities: Mass Graves in territory formerly controlled by ISIL” by the UNAMI and OHCHR, at least 5,000 Yazidis have been killed since IS began its offensive. “A few weeks back, I heard some of my relatives went to mourn their losses at the reburial of their close ones in Kocho where 104 members of our community killed by the militant group were reburied,” Salar said. UNITAD discovered more than 80 mass graves, the UN team investigating IS crimes in Iraq, in Sinjar, and the exhumation of only 19 was completed in March 2019. Over a hundred bodies have been identified by DNA samples so far. Several others are yet to be found. “This might mean closure to some of us,” Salar said. It is not enough.
Given the magnitude of violence against the religious minorities, more particularly the Shia Muslims and Yazidis, mere remembrance is not enough. The solidarity has to go beyond symbolism and remembrance events. The rehabilitation of the persecuted minority has to take precedence over symbolism aimed at attracting headlines,
said Gowhar Geelani, Kashmir-based author and journalist. He believes any ad hoc arrangement won’t fetch results. “A robust mechanism and structure need to be put in place to change and improve the lives of the minorities who have suffered for nearly two decades now,” he added.
According to the Yazidi Rescue Office in the Kurdistan Regional Government’s data, the extremist group kidnapped 6,417 Yazidis, of whom 3,451 have since been rescued, and 2,966 remain missing. Almost 2,745 children have become orphans and hundreds of thousands of Yazidis remain displaced, and the possibility of return has proven futile amidst continuing security threats.
Regional Powers and Their Interests
Meanwhile, Stanly Johny, an expert in international relations and author of The ISIS Caliphate: From Syria to the Doorsteps of India, believes what countries like Georgia, Armenia, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey need are constitutional mechanisms and the government has to be more open and forthcoming with respect to equal religious and civil rights of these minority communities. However, one move can have ripple effects everywhere.
Geopolitics played spoilsport when other countries were focused on their strategic interests. When initially ISIS had captured parts of Iraq and Syria, the focus of the regional and international powers was on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Turkey had kept its borders open so that the jihadis could use them for transit and other countries in the region started pumping money and weapons into Syria because they wanted to strengthen the Syrian civil war against the Bashar al-Assad-led government. ISIS had exploited this lawlessness or the civil strife and captured these weapons.
In Iraq, the governments are either sectarian or divided on sectarian or ethnic lines. For instance, Baghdad has a Shia majority government, and Sunnis mostly live in northern Iraq. There was no meaningful attempt from the part of the government, neither from Baghdad nor from Erbil to address the issues of the minority communities,
Johny said, adding Yazidis are facing problems even in Turkey. Yazidis claim they are a different ethnicity but in Turkey, they are seen as a subset of Kurds, who are themselves a persecuted minority there. To make matters worse, Iran forging a partnership of sorts with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) will only exacerbate the internal problems caused by factionalism and failed governance in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The PKK Factor
“This emerging confluence also has regional and external dangers. Turkey won’t take it kindly,” said Geelani. The PKK, a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq, is looking for ways to consolidate its gains. “In this context, it is important to understand that Americans will up the ante against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. That will also pave the way for the PKK to maximize its gains,” he said, adding that it is no secret that the PKK is focused on gaining further ground politically in Iraqi Kurdistan. It is hoping for a potential escalation in Turkey and Syria. That is where Iranian interests are factored in.
“Obviously, Iran would ideally want to lessen Turkey’s influence in the region and bolster Baghdad’s leverage on the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil. Turkey, for this reason, seeks to cement its ties with the strongest faction in the Kurdistan Democratic Party,” Geelani said while talking about Sinjar becoming the PKK’s hotbed.
Ten years after the genocide, the Yazidi community continues to grapple with the trauma and the aftermath of the atrocities committed against them. According to a report by Refugees International and Voice of Yazidis, over 200,000 Yazidis remain displaced, living in camps in the Kurdistan Region and disputed areas of northern Iraq. The federal Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government are still vying for control over Sinjar, leaving the region in ruins and making it nearly impossible for Yazidis to return and rebuild their lives.
Efforts to provide justice and support to the Yazidi community have been slow and fraught with challenges. The closure of the UN’s investigative team, UNITAD, before it could complete its work, was a significant setback. Universal jurisdiction laws that would enable countries to prosecute ISIS members for atrocity crimes, regardless of where they were committed, are urgently needed. The German prosecution of an Iraqi national in 2021, who was part of IS and found guilty of genocide against the Yazidi minority, shows that universal jurisdiction can provide a path to justice.
The Yazidi Survivors’ Law
The Iraqi government passed the Yazidi Survivors Law in 2021, which ostensibly provides a framework for compensation, rehabilitation, and support. However, the implementation of this law has been severely lacking, with many survivors still waiting to receive the promised assistance. Despite the unpredictability in their lives, ethnic minorities are resilient, trying to live in harmony with an unforgettable past. As for the Yazidis, survival itself was a big test.
In response to the ongoing challenges, a group of Yazidi civil society organizations, community leaders, and intellectuals have called for a special allocation of a $1.5 billion dedicated fund, directly administered by the office of the Prime Minister of Iraq, for the reconstruction of public infrastructure and private housing and property in the District of Sinjar. Iraq’s Parliament recently approved a three-year working budget of $459 billion, with an annual budget of $153 billion, the highest ever passed in the country’s history. However, the Parliament only allocated $38 million for the Sinjar and Nineveh Plain reconstruction in this budget, which has outraged the Yazidi community considering the severe level of destruction in Sinjar and other areas.
The Yazidi community is also lamenting the PKK’s occupation of their homeland, Sinjar. The PKK managed to establish a foothold in Sinjar in 2014 under the pretext of protecting the Yazidi community from Daesh terrorists. However, the terrorist group has been accused of blocking aid to the Yazidi minority in Iraq while hindering their return to the Sinjar region. Despite a deal signed in 2020 by Baghdad and the KRG to end the presence of the PKK in Sinjar, it has not been implemented yet. The Yazidi community is concerned that the PKK, notorious for kidnapping children to bolster its ranks, will do the same once they return to Sinjar.
Reburials and Memorials
In January 2024, a momentous ceremony was held in Sinjar to return the remains of 41 identified Yazidi victims, recovered from mass grave sites in Sinjar. This ceremony, attended by dignitaries from the Iraqi Federal Government, the Kurdistan Regional Government, and the United Nations, allowed families to bury their loved ones in accordance with their traditions. Special Adviser Christian Ritscher commended the resilience of the Yazidi community and highlighted the importance of supporting the excavation of mass graves as a crucial pursuit for UNITAD’s work in their quest for accountability and justice.
In addition to these efforts, Nadia’s Initiative and IOM Iraq have commenced the construction of a cemetery and memorial in Solagh, Sinjar, to honor the victims of the Yazidi genocide. This project, launched in response to requests from the Yazidi community, aims to provide a place for collective mourning and remembrance, serving both as a memorial and an educational landmark to remind the world of the atrocities suffered by the Yazidi community.
Despite the unpredictability in their lives, ethnic minorities are resilient, trying to live in harmony with an unforgettable past.
As for the Yazidis, survival itself was a big test.
