Yazidi genocide
The Yazidi genocide was perpetrated by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2017.[1][11][12] It was characterized by massacres, genocidal rape, and forced conversions to Islam. The Yazidi people, who are non-Arabs, are indigenous to Kurdistan and adhere to Yazidism, which is an Iranian religion derived from the Indo-Iranian tradition. Over a period of three years, Islamic State militants trafficked thousands of Yazidi women and girls and killed thousands of Yazidi men;[13] the United Nations reported that the Islamic State killed about 5,000 Yazidis[5] and trafficked about 10,800 Yazidi women and girls in a "forced conversion campaign"[14][15] throughout Iraq. By 2015, upwards of 71% of the global Yazidi population was displaced by the genocide, with most Yazidi refugees having fled to Iraq's Kurdistan Region and Syria's Rojava.[16][17] The persecution of Yazidis, along with other religious minorities, took place after the Islamic State's Northern Iraq offensive of June 2014.[18][19]
Yazidi genocide
June 2014 – December 2017
Genocidal massacre; genocidal rape and sexual slavery of women and girls; and forced conversion to Islam
~5,000 (per the United Nations)[2][3][4]
Unknown
4,200–10,800 kidnapped or captive[5] and 500,000+ displaced
Islamic fundamentalism[10]
Anti-Yazidi sentiment
Amidst numerous atrocities committed by the Islamic State, the Yazidi genocide attracted international attention and prompted the United States to establish CJTF–OIR, a large military coalition consisting of many Western countries and Turkey, Morocco, and Jordan. Additionally, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia made emergency airdrops to support Yazidi refugees who had become trapped in the Sinjar Mountains due to the Islamic State's Northern Iraq offensive of August 2014. During the Sinjar massacre, in which the Islamic State killed and abducted thousands of the trapped Yazidis, the United States and the United Kingdom began carrying out airstrikes on the advancing Islamic State militants, while the People's Defense Units and the Kurdistan Workers' Party jointly formed a humanitarian corridor to evacuate the rest of the Yazidi refugees from the Sinjar Mountains.[20]
In addition to the United Nations, several countries and organizations have designated the anti-Yazidi campaign of the Islamic State as a definite genocide. These include: the Council of Europe and the European Union, the United States, Canada, Armenia, and Iraq.[1][11]
Background[edit]
Yazidis and the Yazidi religion[edit]
The Yazidis are monotheists who believe in Melek Taus, a benevolent angel who appears as a peacock.[22] The self-proclaimed Islamic State and some other Muslims in the region tend to view the peacock angel as the malevolent creature Lucifer or Shaitan and they consider the Yazidis 'devil worshippers'. IS does not consider Yazidis as People of the book or eligible for Dhimmi and related protections;[23] whereas moderate Islam offers these protections to a wide variety of minority religions.[24]
In August 2014, more than 300 Yazidi families were threatened and forced to choose between conversion to Sunni Islam or death.[25]
Rise of Yazidi anti-Arab militias[edit]
According to a report by Amnesty International, on January 25, 2015, members of a Yazidi militia attacked two Arab villages (Jiri and Sibaya) in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq, killing 21 civilians. The gunmen also kidnapped 40 other residents, 17 of whom are still missing and presumed dead.[126]
Many international organisations, governments and parliaments, as well as groups have classified ISIL's treatment of the Yazidis as genocide, and condemned it as such. The Genocide of Yazidis has been officially recognized by several bodies of the United Nations[127][128] and the European Parliament.[129] Some states have recognized it as well, including the National Assembly of Armenia,[130] the Australian parliament,[131] the British Parliament,[132] the Canadian parliament,[133] and the United States House of Representatives.[134] Multiple individual human rights activists such as Nazand Begikhani and Dr. Widad Akrawi have also advocated for this view.[59][135]
In 2017, CNN journalists Jomana Karadsheh and Chris Jackson interviewed former Yazidi captives and exclusively filmed the Daesh Criminal Investigations Unit (DCIU), a team of Iraqi Kurdish and western investigators who have been operating secretly in Northern Iraq, for more than two years, collecting evidence of ISIS’ war crimes.[136]