Thousands of Yazidis still missing more than a decade after ISIS genocide, says official

Extremists captured and enslaved thousands of women and girls from minority groups, mainly Yazidis, in 2014

Yazidi woman Ashwaq Haji, who was held by ISIS as a slave, holds portraits of victims from her village of Kocho near Sinjar, as she visits the Lalish temple, northern Iraq, in August 2018. AFP

More than a decade after the brutal ISIS genocide, the Yazidi community in Iraq continues to grapple with the devastating aftermath, with thousands still missing and mass graves yet to be excavated, an official told The National on Tuesday.

In August 2014, ISIS extremists captured Sinjar, the ancestral homeland of Yazidis, and surrounding villages, taking thousands captive and slaughtering thousands of others. Some Yazidis fled to Mount Sinjar, where many were flown to safety by the US-backed Iraqi forces.

More than 5,000 Yazidis were killed by ISIS, leaving behind 2,745 orphaned children, said Hussein Qaidi, head of the Office of Rescuing Abducted Yazidis, which is linked to Kurdistan Region Presidency, as he released the latest statistics to The National.

The militants also abducted 6,417 Yazidi women and men, many of whom were subjected to sexual slavery and forced labour, Mr Qaidi said. Of those, only 3,585 were rescued: 1,211 women, 339 men, 1,074 girls and 961 boys, he added.

So far, 93 mass graves of Yazidis killed between 2014 and 2017 have been exhumed in Sinjar, but there are still dozens more. The remains of 274 Yazidis – 237 men and 37 women – have been recovered and returned to their families.

“Our efforts will continue until the last abductee, male or female, is freed,” Mr Qaidi said. “Our duty is to rescue the Yazidi abductees by any means necessary,” he added. The abductees are not only in Iraq and Syria, he said, but refused to name the other countries. Last month, a 33-year-old woman was freed from a foreign country and reunited with her family, and more are to be released “in the coming days”.

For centuries, the Yazidis – who follow an ancient monotheistic religion – lived in the mountains in north-west Iraq where their ancestral villages, temples and shrines are located. They say discrimination and second-class treatment by governments and society has turned them into a closed community.

Displaced Yazidis fleeing ISIS forces walk towards the Syrian border, near Mount Sinjar, northern Iraq, in August 2014. Reuters

In March 2021, the Iraqi parliament approved a law that recognised the crimes committed by ISIS against Yazidi, Christian and Shiite Shabak and Turkmen minorities as genocide and crimes against humanity.

The Yazidi Female Survivors Law aims to provide “compensation, financially and morally” and to “secure a decent life” for survivors through rehabilitation and care.

It covers compensation and reforms for survivors, including monthly payments, the provision of medical and psychological care, the granting of residential land, the right to education without restrictions on age, as well as prioritising survivors for public sector employment.

The law also states that the government will continue to search for those still in captivity, co-ordinate the identification of bodies in mass graves and ensure that perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity are held accountable.

In December 2017, Iraqis declared victory after a gruelling war with ISIS in which thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. Entire towns and neighbourhoods were reduced to rubble in the fighting in northern and western Iraq. ISIS has lost virtually all the territory it held in mid-2014 but still carries out sporadic attacks within Iraq and also has a presence in Syria.