Iraq’s Yazidis: Minority group hunted by Islamic State

The Yazidis, which Germany’s parliament on Thursday recognised as victims of genocide, are a Kurdish-speaking ethno-religious minority found mainly in Iraq.

Islamic State jihadists carried out horrific violence against the community in 2014, killing men en masse and abducting thousands of girls and women as sex slaves.

Here are some key facts about the Yazidis:

– Ancient faith –

Mainly living in remote corners of northern Iraq, the Yazidis are followers of an ancient religion that emerged in Iran more than 4,000 years ago and is rooted in Zoroastrianism.

Over time it has also absorbed elements of Islam and Christianity.

Organised into three castes — sheikhs, pirs, and murids — Yazidis pray to God facing the sun and worship his seven angels, led by Melek Taus, or Peacock Angel.

Their holiest site is Lalish, a serene stone complex of shrines and natural springs in Iraq’s mountainous northwest where visitors must walk barefoot.

Yazidis discourage marriage outside of their community and across their caste system.

The faith is led by a five-member High Spiritual Council based in nearby Sheikhan, which includes both the worldwide “prince” of Yazidis and Baba Sheikh, their religious chief.

Their beliefs and practises include a ban on eating lettuce and wearing the colour blue. Some Muslims wrongly accuse them of being devil worshippers.

The community was persecuted during Ottoman times and also under Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

– Hunted by IS –

Of the world’s nearly 1.5 million Yazidis, the largest number — 550,000 — lived in Iraq before the IS offensive in 2014.

The Sunni extremists attacked the Yazidi bastion of Sinjar in August 2014, killing more than 1,200 people, leaving several hundred children orphaned and destroying nearly 70 shrines, according to local authorities.

A further 6,400 Yazidis were abducted, around half of whom were rescued or managed to flee.

Some women who were forced to bear the children of IS fighters abandoned them, fearing they would not be accepted by their community.

After the massacres, some 100,000 Yazidis fled to Europe, the United States, Australia and Canada, according to the UN.

Among those who found refuge in Germany was 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad who was captured, raped and forced to marry a jihadist before she was able to escape.

Lebanese-British lawyer Amal Clooney has been at the forefront of a campaign led by Murad to have IS crimes against Yazidis be recognised as genocide.

– ‘Genocide’ label –

In May 2021, a special UN investigation team said it had collected “clear and convincing evidence” that IS had committed genocide against the Yazidis.

On Thursday, Germany’s lower house of parliament recognised the 2014 massacre as a “genocide”, saying IS had “the intention of completely wiping out the Yazidi community”.

Parliamentarians in Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands, have also taken similar steps.

Germany is one of the few Western countries to have put IS fighters on trial, with a court in 2021 convicting an Iraqi jihadist of genocide against the Yazidi.

burs-eab/cb/jmm