News
Islamic State “committed and continues to commit” genocide against the Yazidis, UN report says
Over 3,200 women, children continue to be held by extremist group
The report is based on 45 interviews conducted with survivors, religious leaders, activists, lawyers, medical personnel, journalists and smugglers.
According to it, the Islamic State "has sought to destroy the Yazidis in multiple ways," including mass killings, sexual slavery, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment, forced religious conversions, expulsions, and abduction of children. This "clearly demonstrates" that IS "intended to destroy the Yazidis of Sinjar, in whole or in part."
The report points out that more than 3,200 Yazidi women and children continue to be held by the extremist organization, "most in Syria, where Yazidi women and girls continue to be sexually enslaved and otherwise abused, and Yazidi boys, indoctrinated and trained."
The Yazidis are s Kurdish-speaking community who practice their own religion, Yazidism, which combines pre-Islamic elements with Islamic influences. IS believes the Yazidis to be devil worshipers, and seeks to completely destroy them.
In August 2014, IS fighters attacked the Yazidi-majority Sinjar region, and overran most of it except for the eponymous mountain, where thousands took refuge. It is estimated that 2,000 to 5,000 Yazidis were killed in the attack and subsequent occupation.
PKK-linked HPG and YPG Kurdish militias then opened a corridor from Mount Sinjar into Syria, and were able to rescue over 35,000 people trapped there.
In December 2014, a joint offensive jointly carried out by the Peshmerga (armed forces of South Kurdistan), the HPG and YPG allowed to break the siege of Mount Sinjar and expel the Islamic State from many villages. The extremist group lost the city of Sinjar in November 2015 to Kurdish hands.