Persecution,
massacres, mass graves and intimidation, Yazidis are a religious and ethnic
minority that faced all these horrors.
These
prompted academics around the world to try to understand what this minority is,
and it prompted me personally to write about them, based on my proximity to
them and our presence in the same city.
Who Are the
Yazidis and the Cause of Crimes Against Them
Yazidis are one of the most famous minorities in the Middle
East. They live in northern Iraq near the Kurdistan region. They have their own
Yazidi religion. They worship God and glorify the pious king. They have their
own beliefs and religious rituals that they practice in the Kurdish language
"Kurmanji"
Yazidi
religion owns two sacred books, "Al-Jilwa" by Uday bin Musafir, who
is considered the founder of this religion, and the black book, "Musaf
Rush," which is the book in which the foundations and teachings of the
religion.
There is one
religious temple for the Yazidis, the Lalish Temple, located on Mount Sinjar,
and it is the place where they practice worship and pilgrimage every year
The Yazidi
religion is considered a closed religion, as the religion does not allow people
not born of Yazidis to enter the Yazidi religion.
As for the
inner community, it is divided into three classes: the general class, the
"Al-Mured", then the "Pir", meaning the adults, who are the
people of old ages, and then the upper class, which is the "Sheikh",
the people who spread the teachings to the followers and lead them.
Different
religious beliefs and special rituals, in addition to the Kurdish roots, all of
these things made the Yazidis face religious and political persecution over the
past ages, and the last of these crimes was when the Islamic state entered
their regions.
Islamic
State Attack
During the
attack launched by the Islamic State, in which thousands were killed in the
first days of the attack and displaced 350,000 Yazidis from their home and
about 7,000 were kidnapped, most of them women, as slaves, for sale and for
sexual purposes.
After the
displacement of thousands of people from the region and its complete fall into
the hands of the Islamic State, its fighters blew up the homes of the Yazidis
and the temples that they considered symbols of infidelity.
The Islamic
State undertook the genocide of the Yazidis and the ethnic cleansing of this
minority. After the retaking of these areas by the Kurdish forces, the
investigators found more than 70 mass graves of the Yazidis.
Women
Suffering
The fighters
of the Islamic State kidnapped thousands of Yazidi women, and according to the
testimonies of the survivors, the Islamic State fighters sold them in special
markets for the sale of captives, and they were raped and tortured because of
their religion.
The
survivors also indicated that even underage girls were not spared from torture
and physical and sexual violence by the fighters, as they were taught the
teachings of the Islamic religion and embraced the Islamic religion under pressure
from the followers of the Islamic state.
These
measures came in order to continue capturing women and not to kill them, as the
Islamic state refuses to live with the followers of other religions and to kill
them.
Among the
women survivors, Nadia Murad, the most prominent of the kidnappers, who spoke
about their suffering during the kidnapping period, and she won the Nobel Peace
Prize through her efforts to push the survivors to speak about their suffering
and testify against the Islamic State.
Return of
the Kidnapped and the Obstacles
Presence of
the Islamic State in the region ended after a year of seizing the region, but
the suffering of women and their families continued, as the Islamic State had
about seven thousand of the kidnapped Yazidis remaining.
Kidnapped
were transported from one place to another, especially when the fighting
intensified between the government forces and the Islamic State fighters.
Government
forces and Kurdish forces in Iraq and Syria have worked to return the
abductees, especially by the forces of the Autonomous Administration in
northern Syria, where the last battles were against the Islamic State in the
Syrian territories.
When women
were liberated, they faced many obstacles, including the inability to return to
their families at the beginning due to their forced marriage with Islamic State
fighters, as the Yazidi religion rejects the Yazidis if they marry someone of
other religions.
This
obstacle ended after a decision by the spiritual father of the Yazidis to
accept women.
As for
children from a Yazidi mother and a Muslim father, they were not accepted, so
many women were forced to dispense with their children and leave them in the
refugee camps in Syria, this obstacle is also due to the religious closure of
the Yazidis.
Current
Situation
Thousands of
Yazidis are still unaccounted for, either in the territories of Iraq or Syria,
thousands were killed and others displaced to neighboring countries and to
Europe. Investigations are still continuing to uncover the crimes committed by
the Islamic State against the Yazidis.
Yazidis
refuse to return to their areas due to fear and the shock effects of what
happened, the unknown fate of their relatives, and the instability that exists
in their areas due to the presence of many armed groups that differ in their
orientations and loyalties.
Edited by –
Adrija Saha
Social