On February 22, the process of the exhumation of a mass grave of Yazidi genocide victims was begun in the village of Hardan, which is located in the Yazidi homeland of Sinjar in Iraq. The remains will be matched with surviving family members based on DNA sampling, Yazidi sources reported. Hardan was among the worst affected villages during the Yazidi genocide perpetrated by ISIS (Islamic State/IS) in 2014.
The exhumation activities in Hardan are being carried out by the Martyrs Foundation, the Iraqi authority in charge of the processes of exhumation and identification of victims, in cooperation with the UN Investigative Team for Accountability of Da’esh/ISIL (UNITAD).
The Free Yezidi Foundation (FYF) has prepared a report on the atrocities committed by ISIS against Yazidis in Hardan. The report is “confidential, according to safety and confidentiality protocols and in line with the consent of those who have provided underlying evidence. It is designed to be shared under special protocols with UN mechanisms and national prosecutors and law enforcement agencies in friendly jurisdictions.”
The FYF further explained:
While the contents and the underlying evidence is private, the Free Yezidi Foundation intends to make publicly known that a report on the atrocities committed in Hardan does exist, and the victims and survivors of these crime are not forgotten. This report is designed to improve the possibilities of criminal accountability for these atrocities. This report and the evidence gathered over the last years by various organizations makes abundantly clear that while ISIS was a terror organization, it was also, fundamentally, a genocidal, mass-rape organization which planned and executed horrific atrocities & human rights abuses. This report is a testament to the bravery and strength of the survivors, the hard work of the investigators and lawyers, the resilience of the Yezidi community, and the support of our friends in the United States Department of State.
On 3 August 2014, ISIS attacked the Yazidis in Sinjar, an indigenous, persecuted non-Muslim minority. thousands were killed either by execution or due to dehydration and starvation during ISIS occupation of Sinjar. Thousands of Yazidi children and women were kidnapped. According to a report by Yazda, a Yazidi human rights organization:
Between 2019 and 2020, a total of 18 mass graves were exhumed in Sinjar (17 in Kocho and 1 in Solagh) and the remains of 145 victims were identified and buried so far. There are still around 70 unexhumed mass graves and as people return to their areas, new sites are discovered. In Hardan, a total of 6 mass graves and one kill site needs to be exhumed and the work will be performed over the course of the next 3 to 4 weeks. Hardan is the first village on the North side of Sinjar Mountain where exhumations will be carried out with the technical support of UNITAD. Like many other villages in Sinjar, Hardan was attacked by ISIL on 3 August 2014. 362 Yazidis were kidnapped, 132 of whom are still missing and might be identified among the excavated remains.
Yazidi temples and shrines were destroyed. Zinah Khallat Sulaiman, a 23-year-old Yazidi survivor from ISIS captivity, and a founding member of the Yazidi Survivors Network, said:
When ISIS attacked my peaceful community in 2014, women were further abused and assaulted and used as toys of war. While evidence and effects of genocide began to appear to the world, especially by ISIS, who glorify their crimes…. Nightmares and suffering of thousands of Yazidi women began during the first hours, many of them were separated from their families, and they were sold in the largest slave market in the 21st century. Women and children up to the age of nine were raped repeatedly until one of them became worth a pack of cigarettes.
According to a 2018 report by Yazda:
IS fighters ‘justified’ their campaign of systematic atrocities against the Yazidis as a duty for Muslims. More concretely, these atrocities included forced religious conversions, killing of older men and women, brainwashing of boys who were trained as jihadists and in some cases sent as suicide bombers to attack their own Yazidi community, killing of those with developmental and physical disabilities, and enslavement and rape of women and girls. In their own published rationale for the genocide, IS claimed that Muslims would be questioned by God on the Day of Judgment as to why the Yazidis had been allowed to continue existing within Islamic domains. Both publications by the IS and survivors’ account of the events clearly demonstrate IS’s intent to target Yazidis specifically, a religious group protected under the Genocide Convention.
In Iraq and Turkey, Yazidi persecution is ongoing. On February 2, Turkey bombed parts of Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq. The Turkish government says the bombings are aimed at the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). However, “Turkey’s regular targeting of Sinjar region is affecting the area badly and preventing displaced people from returning,” reported Saman Dawod, a Yazidi journalist specializing in Iraqi minority issues.
Yazidis returning to their homes in the Sinjar district of Iraq have demanded international intervention to protect them from the ongoing Turkish bombing.
Since 2017, near 80 Yazidi people were killed by Turkish airstrike, 64 of them from Sinjar Resistance Units [YBS] which is formally affiliated with Popular Unites, according to a high-ranking military officer in YBS.”
Meanwhile, a recently leaked report by Turkey’s Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) revealed details about how the jihadi group used Turkey to traffic money and obtain supplies, including drone parts. According to the report, many ISIS collaborators have also received Turkish citizenship.
On February 22, the top Iraqi court revoked Yazidi parliamentary representation. The Iraqi Federal Supreme Court issued a verdict declaring the parliamentary representation of Yazidis and two other ethno-religious groups as “unconstitutional,” with the minorities losing their quota seats and having to compete within other quotas.
The discrimination and persecution against Yazidis in Muslim countries is not new. The history of the Yazidi community is laden with oppression and violence. Yazidis call the 2014 attack by ISIS “the 74th Yazidi genocide.” Since the advent of Islam in the seventh century, Yazidis have been exposed to massacres and attempts at forced conversions at the hands of many Muslim states, armies, organizations as well as individuals. For Islamic theology distinguishes two types of non-Muslims:
- Ahl al-Kitab (“People of the Book”), a euphemism for Jews and Christians
- All others
The common assertion that the “People of the Book” are protected in Islamic law is false. “People of the Book” are dhimmis – second-class subjects − who are forced to buy their lives from Muslims with a “dhimmi pact.” According to Islamic theology, the “People of the Book” must be fought against until they either convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax to Muslim rulers. And the jizya tax is a symbol of non-Muslim submission to Islamic hegemony.
The Yazidis, however, are not even a “People of the Book.” Thus, they are not given the opportunity to submit. Instead, they are often given two choices: conversion to Islam or death.
Yazidis – like other non-Muslims – are also considered “kafirs” by Islamic theology. “Kafir is an actual word the Koran uses for non-Muslims,” notes Dr. Bill Warner. “It is usually translated as unbeliever or infidel, but that translation is wrong. The word unbeliever is neutral, while the attitude of the Koran towards unbelievers is very negative. The Koran defines the Kafir as hated by Allah. A Muslim is never the true friend of a Kafir. Kafirs can be enslaved, raped, beheaded, plotted against, terrorized, and humiliated. A Kafir is not a full human.”
Islamic scriptures also condone forced conversions and sexual enslavement of non-Muslim women. A large part of the Islamic sharia law is dedicated to slavery. As the website “The Religion of Peace” notes: The very fact that only non-Muslims may be taken as slaves is evidence of Islam’s supremacist doctrine.”
Many such teachings in Islamic scriptures lead to the dehumanization, oppression and violence against the Yazidi and other non-Muslim communities. Nearly 8 years after the Yazidi genocide, Sinjar remains a war-torn area, much of which ISIS destroyed. Approximately 210,000 displaced Yazidis are still living in refugee camps in Iraq. And families are still searching for at least 2,700 Yazidi women and children kidnapped by ISIS.
Meanwhile, Yazidis in Iraq, who recently lost their quota seats in the parliament, are still searching for the remains of their family members in mass graves and kill sites. And Turkey, a NATO member, continues bombing parts of Sinjar and terrorizing Yazidis while it grants Turkish citizenship to ISIS collaborators.
Amid all these injustices and massacres against Yazidis, an even more urgent question emerges: Why is the “free” West largely enabling or turning a blind eye to all these crimes, many of which are perpetrated by the West’s supposed allies or partners?
Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist and political analyst formerly based in Ankara.
Rafael says
Sadly, there are no more than a few hundred Yazidis in Turkey, although they were tens of thousands before. Turkey has never made it secret that their aim is Infidelrein like Judenrein in Nazi Germany. Same with the PKK terror organization who are also responsible for the destruction of Yazidi and Assyrian communities in Turkey. Sunni Kurds betrayed their own identity by driving the Yazidi community out of Northern Kurdistan. As the sadistic Turkish marshal Topal Osman, Ataturk’s friend, once said “We killed the Armenians the next is the Kurds”. Kurdistani Sunnis, Shias, Kakais, Jews, Christians, regardless of their belief, they should organize themselves in order to protect their Yazidi kinsmen from the vicious, barbaric terrorist attacks at the hands of Erdogan.
gravenimage says
Too true, Rafael.
gravenimage says
Yazidis in Iraq exhume ISIS mass graves as Turkey bombs and Iraq discriminates against them
…………
Just horrifying,
And now with the Islamic State resurgent in the region, they may face full genocide again soon.