The report remarks
‘Targeted killings of Yazidi date back to the period of the Ottoman Empire and began to increase in frequency in 2007 when bus hijackings and vehicle bombings conducted by suspected Al-Qaida militants left hundreds dead or injured.
However, at no point in history have the acts of violence against them have been more heinous and systematic than during the persecution campaign initiated by ISIL on 3 August 2014.
On that day, ISIL invaded hundreds of towns and villages, forcing most of the population (c. 400,000 people) to flee to neighbouring Kurdistan and other areas of Iraq. An estimated 40,000-50,000 people fled to the top of Mount Sinjar. Thousands of Yazidi were also killed or taken as captives to Mosul and the Syrian Arab Republic. These acts of violence represented a clear attempt to persecute, subjugate and destroy an entire community, notably because:
1. The Yazidi were targeted by ISIL, regardless of their age or sex: both executions and kidnappings were systematic and targeted children and adults indiscriminately. These findings have been confirmed by the discovery of several mass graves64 containing the remains of hundreds of Yazidi men, women, and children in the Sinjar area (which has been taken back from ISIL).65
2. The Yazidi were forced to convert and to abandon all their traditions and customs (i.e., to repudiate their cultural identity).
3. ISIL fighters destroyed or looted Yazidi temples and shrines.
4. Families in captivity were separated and forcibly transferred to temporary holding sites in ISIL-controlled territory.
5. Rape, sexual slavery and other forms of enslavement were used to psychologically and physically debilitate women and girls and to ensure that they could never again lead a normal life.
6. ISIL fighters regularly traded and purchased unmarried women and girls in open slave markets. They also held online slave auctions, using an encrypted application which circulated photographs of the captives, as well as details of their age, marital status, current location and price.
7. Boys were forcibly indoctrinated, recruited, given new names, trained in military camps, and used as human shields. Only those who had not reached puberty were allowed to remain with their mothers.
The Yazidi were not the only minority to be targeted by ISIL. Shia Turkmen, Shia Shabak and Christian communities were also considered to be kuffar (i.e., “infidel unbelievers”) and therefore persecuted. Initially, Christians (viewed by ISIL as “People of the Book”) were ostensibly given the option of paying jizya (a form of protection tax), as an alternative to death, for the “privilege” of living under the rule of the so-called caliphate. Such claims, however, were apparently mere propaganda, since all Christians were also forced to convert. All these facts demonstrate that ISIL acted freely and implemented a thorough and systematic plan to commit the crime of genocide, in addition to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
On 3 June 2018, the Department of Yazidi Affairs in the Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs of the Kurdistan Regional Government evaluated the toll of atrocities perpetrated by ISIL in accordance with the following statistics:
• Number of people displaced following ISIL invasion: 360,000
• Number of orphans created by the invasion: 2,745
• Number of abductees: 6,417 (3,548 females and 2,869 males)
• Number of those who emigrated: 100,000
• Numbers of survivors: 3,300 (1,150 women, 337 men, 946 female children and 867 male children).
• Number of those remaining in the grip of ISIL: 3,117 (1,452 females and 1,665 males).
41. The last figure is particularly worrying. More than 3,000 individuals remain missing’.
Read the full report here.