In August 2014, ISIS attacked and overran the Yezidis and their homeland around Sinjar in northern Iraq. They then went on to capture about one-third of Iraq.
In their genocidal campaign on the Yezidi people, ISIS killed more than 3,000, and captured about 6,000 more. Many of those were women and girls who were taken into sexual slavery and remain missing to this day.
Most of those who were killed were dumped into mass graves, which are still being located and the bodies exhumed. So far, more than 81 mass graves have been discovered, according to Kurdish officials. But UNITAD’s latest report on the excavation of Yezidi mass graves indicates that only 40 have been excavated by their team thus far.
Families whose loved ones were taken captive have received little help from the Iraqi government in locating and freeing their family members still being held by ISIS.
For 10 years, Yezidis have sought justice and accountability for the crimes committed against them by ISIS. 14 countries around the world have recognized the Yezidi genocide, but the Iraqi government has still not recognized the ISIS crimes against Yezidis as genocide. Such recognition, of course, would carry with it the responsibility to remedy the situation for Yezidis.
