Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

[Londoner]

He has been released. He was legally arrested for forming an illegal armed group. Now his armed group goes under the command of Peshmerga ministry.

[Piling]

Another short psycho-drama PUK-KDP.

[Londoner]

Another short psycho-drama PUK-KDP.

I don't think it was like that. He has been warned long ago and was given upto this April to come under ministry of Peshmerga. PUK knew that. He was lucky not to put on trial.

[Piling]

In any case, the agreement is a good thing. The worst would be private militias in Kurdistan leading to a civil war.

[Anthea]

In any case, the agreement is a good thing. The worst would be private militias in Kurdistan leading to a civil war.

One only has to look at Syria to see what happens when private militias run amok

[Anthea]

Associated Press

ISIS releases over 200 captive Iraqi Yazidis

BAGHDAD — The Islamic State group released more than 200 Yazidis on Wednesday after holding them for eight months, the latest mass release of captives by the extremists targeted by U.S.-led airstrikes and an Iraqi ground offensive.

Gen. Hiwa Abdullah, a peshmerga commander in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, said most of the freed 216 prisoners were in poor health and bore signs of abuse and neglect. He added that about 40 children are among those released, while the rest were elderly.

No reason was given for the release of the prisoners who were originally abducted from the area around Sinjar in the country’s north. The handover took place in Himera just southwest of Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad.

The freed captives wept and called out to God when greeted by their families, some so weak they lay on the arid ground. Women wiped away tears with their long headscarves.

“We are very happy now,” said Mahmoud Haji, one of the released Yazidis. “We were worried that they were taking us to Syria and Raqqa,” the Islamic State group’s de facto capital.

Those needing medical care were taken away by ambulances and buses to receive treatment.

Also among those released was Jar-Allah Frensis, a 88-year-old Christian farmer, and his wife.

Frensis said the militants broke into his house in Sinjar and arrested him along with his wife and son. Then, the family was separated and the son was taken away. He said he still doesn’t know what happened to his son.

“The militants took all of our money and jewelry. We have been living under constant fear till our release,” Frensis told The Associated Press.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the release, his spokesman said.

“Obviously, any release of innocent civilians is to be welcomed and I think one couldn’t help but being moved by the pictures” of the Yazidis after they were freed, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Tens of thousands of Yazidis fled in August when the Islamic State group captured the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, near the Syrian border. But hundreds were taken captive by the group, with some Yazidi women forced into slavery, according to international rights groups and Iraqi officials.

In January, the Islamic State group released some 200 Yazidi prisoners. At the time, Kurdish military officials said they believed the extremists released the prisoners as they were too much of a burden. This latest release comes after Iraqi ground forces, backed by U.S.-led airstrikes, retook the city of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown.

The Islamic State group still holds about a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria in its self-declared caliphate. The U.S. launched the airstrikes and humanitarian aid drops in Iraq on Aug. 8, partly in response to the Yazidi crisis.

The Sunni militant group views Yazidis and Shiite Muslims as apostates deserving of death, and has demanded Christians either convert to Islam or pay a special tax. The group has massacred hundreds of captive soldiers and tribal fighters who have risen up against it, publicizing the killings in sleek online photos and videos.

In other violence Wednesday in Iraq, police and hospital officials said a bomb exploded near an outdoor market in Baghdad’s southeastern suburb of Nahrwan, killing four people and wounding 10. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

http://nypost.com/2015/04/08/isis-relea ... i-yazidis/

[Anthea]

Traditional Yazidi clothing

[Anthea]

Yazidi girls kidnapped by Islamic State return traumatized

One 9-year-old is pregnant, and there are signs of abuse and neglect among 200 captives released this week, say aid workers.

When they were torn from their families by Islamic State militants last summer, thousands of Yazidi girls and women were raped, tortured, forcibly married and enslaved.

But after eight months in hell, some have struggled back to their surviving relatives in Iraqi Kurdistan: sick, broken, traumatized — and pregnant.

The youngest of these is 9, according to volunteers working in the refugee camps and abandoned buildings where they are sheltering.

“This girl is so young she could die if she delivers a baby,” said Yousif Daoud, a Canadian-based aid worker who recently returned from the region. “Even a caesarian section is dangerous. The abuse she has suffered left her mentally and physically traumatized.”

This week Islamic State released more than 200 Yazidi captives, including 40 children. The others were mostly elderly, and all bore signs of abuse and neglect, according to a report from Associated Press.

Up to 500 kidnapped girls and women had already found their way back to their devastated homeland in Kurdistan, where about 40,000 Yazidis were attacked and besieged in August 2014, as the militants made a lightning assault on a minority they condemn as heretics. Hundreds were killed, and some 4,000 girls and women are still believed to be captive.

But the futures of those who return are dark in a community that highly values chastity and honour.

The plight is worst for those pregnant after repeated sexual assault, as many as 200. Although some Yazidi men have announced that they would marry women who return from the Islamic State, that is less likely if they are carrying their tormentors’ children.

“Sending back those girls and women is a way of shaming the whole community,” said Daoud, who spoke under a pseudonym to avoid losing the trust of the secretive religious sect.

That includes the children they are carrying against their will.

The Yazidis, a close-knit, conservative minority with roots in several ancient religions, believe in the purity of their line. Many of the pregnant women seek abortions to avoid the stigma. But finding medical care is difficult for destitute displaced people, and some could not terminate pregnancies in time. Others have resorted to dangerous methods or committed suicide.

“I don’t know what the future would be for their babies,” said Daoud. “The girls and women don’t want them. They have suffered so much they just want to forget. If they are married, their husbands won’t take them back if they are pregnant. And it’s clear that the babies will never be accepted.”

The kidnapped 9-year-old girl, he said, “was sexually abused by no fewer than 10 men. Most of them were front-line fighters or suicide bombers who are given girls as a reward. She was in very bad shape.”

This week a Kurdish aid group took her to Germany, where a medical charity is looking after her.

If she survives the ordeal, her outlook will be better than that of dozens of other pregnant, traumatized Yazidi women. Unless Canada or other Western countries are willing to accept them quickly as refugees — and allow their babies to be adopted — aid workers say, the militants’ jihad will reach into another generation.

In Toronto on Sunday, at 7.30 p.m., three Yazidis now living in Canada will give personal testimonies on the attacks on their community by Islamic State militants in Iraq. Mirza Ismail, chairman of the Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International, will also speak. The event is at B’nai Brith at 15 Hove St. in North York.

Abuse common in war zones

The horrors suffered by Yazidi girls and women are especially severe, but far from rare in conflict zones. Dr. Samantha Nutt, founder and executive director of War Child Canada, says brutality toward females is a “pattern of abuse and intimidation” that has spilled across borders.

“These primeval mechanisms are being used to threaten, abuse and traumatize,” she says. “It’s an attempt to erase an entire generation. When you rape a girl, it’s an entire family decimated, if not an entire community.”

And she says, in many societies those girls, and the children born from abuse, face ongoing violence and abuse themselves. “Even at school they are stigmatized by teachers and fellow students. In Uganda, children who are a product of rape by (Lord’s Resistance Army rebels) have been locked in cages or set on fire, because they are so closely associated with the aggressor and the trauma.”

Recovery for traumatized rape victims, Nutt says, takes years, and those helping them must make a long-term commitment. “It’s difficult if there is ongoing violence and instability. If they feel they are at risk again, it eats at them every day.

“Investing in strengthening the rule of law and peace and reconciliation may not seem as relevant as food, water and blankets, but they must have a stable structure to make sure they are not economically and socially damaged for the rest of their lives.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/ ... tized.html

[Anthea]

The Independent

Nine-year-old Yazidi sex slave raped by 10 Isis militants is now pregnant – and could die delivering the baby

A nine-year-old girl who was taken as a sex slave by Isis was raped by 10 militants and is now pregnant, it has been reported.

According to an aid worker, the girl is a member of the Yazidi Christian minority religious group, which faces persecution across Isis-held territory.

She has been flown out of Iraq by a Kurdish aid agency, the Toronto Star reported, and is now being treated by a medical charity in Germany.

But Yousif Daoud, a Canada-based aid worker who has just returned from the region, told the Star the girl was “mentally and physically traumatised” after the abuse she had suffered, and there are fears she may yet not survive her ordeal.

“This girl is so young she could die if she delivers a baby,” he said. “Even a caesarian section is dangerous.”

When she was found the girl “was in very bad shape”, Daoud said. “She was sexually abused by no fewer than 10 men. Most of them were front-line fighters or suicide bombers who are given girls as a reward.”

Isis released 216 Yazidis on Wednesday after holding them captive for eight months, in a mass release that some see as a sign of the increasing pressures put on the militants by US-led air strikes and an Iraqi ground offensive.

But Daoud, speaking under a pseudonym, gave a very different reason for Isis to release women and girls who its militants have already abused.

He said they faced the stigma of lost chastity among the conservative Yazidi society. “Sending back those girls and women is a way of shaming the whole community.”

The kidnapped nine-year-old girl was among hundreds of kidnapped girls and women who had made their way back to Kurdish-controlled land prior to Wednesday’s release.

But another 40 children were among the more than 200 newly-freed captives. The rest were mostly elderly – and all bore signs of neglect and abuse.

The handover took place in Himera just southwest of Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, and there were emotional scenes as they were checked over by peshmerga field doctors.

Some suggested they were led to believe they were being taken for execution when piled onto buses by Isis. “We are very happy now,” said Mahmoud Haji, one of the released Yazidis. “We were worried that they were taking us to Syria and Raqqa.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the release, his spokesman said.

Stephane Dujarric said: “Obviously, any release of innocent civilians is to be welcomed and I think one couldn't help but being moved by the pictures.”

Link to Article & Photos:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 70743.html

[Anthea]

CNN

Fleeing terror: A Yazidi family's horrifying tale
By Arwa Damon

Duhok, Iraqi Kurdistan (CNN)The children laugh and shriek, as some of them seem to always have the capacity to do no matter how depressing the circumstances.

Their bright clothes provide splashes of color against the otherwise drab monotone white of the endless rows of tents.

A small group plays with rocks, replacements for the toys they left behind when they fled, while others clamber through a jagged tear in the wire fence surrounding the refugee camp.

The Shariya refugee camp opened around six months ago, made up of some 4,000 tents and counting.

Thousands of Yazidis now call this corner of Iraqi Kurdistan home, about 18 miles (30km) from one of the frontlines with ISIS, where one can hear the occasional reverberation in the distance of what we are told are airstrikes.

Thousands taken captive

The vast majority of the camp's occupants are from the town of Sinjar, which is near the border with Syrian Kudistan, and fled the ISIS assault there back in August. But not everyone escaped. ISIS took thousands of Yazidis captive.

The fighters separated the young women and girls, some as young as 8-years old, to be sold as slaves, for their "masters" to use as concubines. Men faced a choice -- convert to Islam or be shot.

Mahmoud was out running errands when ISIS fighters arrived, taking his wife Ahlam, their three children -- the youngest of which was just a month old -- and his elderly parents.

"They took our phones, jewelry, money," Ahlam recalls. "They had guns. They forced us at gunpoint into big trailer trucks."

They were taken to a school turned prison in Tal Afar. From there, the family was moved from village to village -- and at one stage taken to Mosul.

"They wrote everyone's name down and they asked where we want to work, in the fields, as cleaners, or as herders," she says.

Ahlam and her family chose to herd goats.

They were then taken to a Shia village whose residents had fled, where they were part of a group of around 40 living in one house. In the home, Ahlam found a cell phone left behind by its former occupants and called her husband.

"I said we are alive but we are prisoners."

Ahlam's husband, who up until that moment had lost the will to live thinking his family was dead, says he cried out of happiness despite his pain.

Ahlam would call when she could, briefly, after midnight, hiding under her bed covers. If she was caught with a phone, she would be killed.

Village prison

The village itself was a massive prison, its entrances guarded by ISIS fighters.

She recalls two men, in their late 40s or 50s, tried to escape. When they were caught, their bones were broken, their bodies tied to the back of a truck and then driven through the streets.

The Yazidi captives were forced to watch the gruesome spectacle. The men's corpses were then tossed into a ditch and an order given not to bury them.

One night some of the Yazidi men risked their lives to toss dirt on their bodies, to give those slain what dignity they could.

Ahlam tells us that about a week before we met, ISIS fighters came by and took away her in-laws and the other elderly people living in the house.

"We didn't know where they were taking them, we thought we would be next," she remembers.

So she and the rest of the group realized that they had to try to flee.

"We decided that either we survive or we don't."

Link to Full Article - Videos - Photos:

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/13/middl ... index.html

[Anthea]

The Yezidi New Year, known as Sere Sal, meaning “Head of the Year”, is celebrated on a particular Wednesday of April, known as Red Wednesday. This day commemorates the Wednesday that Tawsi Melek first came to Earth millions of years ago in order to calm the planet’s quaking and spread his peacock colors throughout the world. Part of the New Year celebration is the coloring of eggs, which collectively represent Tawsi Melek’s rainbow colors that he blessed the world with and displays in his form of the Peacock Angel. The eggs are principally colored red, blue, green and yellow. Women also place blood-red flowers and shells of the colored eggs above the doors of the Yezidis so that Tawsi Melek can recognize their abodes.

New Year day begins with a banquet to honor the dead. At dawn, all Yezidi women go to the nearby cemeteries with pots of food while men remain behind in the villages. The graves quickly become transformed into tables for many plates of food, colored eggs, red flowers and framed photos of the deceased. While going from tombstone to tombstone the women eulogize each of the deceased with mournful singing and wailing. Afterwards tablecloths are spread on the ground between the graves and the women proceed to feast upon the offered food. Meanwhile, back in the villages, the men congratulate each other at the beginning of the New Year.

[Anthea]

Ezidi New Year celebration Red Wednesday in Mosul

People attend the celebrations of Ezidi New Year, known as Sere Sal or Chwarshaba Sor, meaning “Head of the Year, commemorated on a particular Wednesday of April known as Red Wednesday, at Lalish Temple in Sheyhan district of Mosul, Iraq on April 14, 2015.

Candles are lit at all corners of the temple and sky lanterns are released during the celebrations where Ezidis kiss the hand of Baba Shiekh, the Yezidi “Pope.” Every year, on "Red Wednesday" in April, Yezidis mark the beginning of the New Year, the day that Tawsi Melek first came to Earth millions of years ago in order to calm the planet’s quaking and spread his peacock colors throughout the world.

The New Year celebration is one of the three main Yezidi feasts. The ceremony started on Tuesday evening in Lalish Temple, the main Yezidi temple, which is 60 km north of Mosul, in Shekhan.

phpBB [video]

[Anthea]

The Yezidi New Year and its connections with other ancient civilizations
By Nallein Satana Al-Jilwah Sowilo

The Yezidis celebrate their New Year, Sera Sal i.e. the Head of the Year, with great fanfare. Sera Sal falls on Wednesday in the month of April and is also known as Red Wednesday.

This commemorates the day when Tausi Malek, the Peacock Angel, came to Earth for the first time, millions of years ago. Tausi Malek calmed the planet earth by spreading his peacock wings of rainbow colors and blessed the entire world.



One of the key features of Yezidi New Year celebration is the coloring of eggs, a tradition that can be traced back to ancient Sumerian and Babylonian celebration of spring festival of Ishtar. These colored eggs are the symbolic representation of Tausi Malek’s rainbow colors that he is believed to have used for blessing the earth with fertility, hence, the rebirth of the spring season. The eggs are painted red, blue, green, and yellow. The womenfolk’s decorate their homes by placing red flowers and colored egg shells on top of their front doors so that Tausi Malek can recognize their abode for the blessings.

The Yezidi calendar is dated to be 6764 years old, therefore, it has its origin about 4764 years before the arrival of Christianity and more than 5000 years before the arrival of Islam. On this particular day, at dawn, women dress up in colorful clothing’s and go to the nearby cemeteries with pots of dishes, candies, lamps and other offerings for the dead and fairies which are said to return to earth on Sere Sal.

These offerings include oranges, apples, dates, colored eggs etc. The graves get transformed into banquets for the spirits that return to their graves, and the offerings are made. Women take to singing and dancing with dehol (drum) and zorna (shawm). Table clothes are spread around on the ground in between the graves and women proceed to feast upon variety of offerings. Also, Red flowers are plastered on doors so the Peacock angel could recognize his people. The color red represents sacrifice which is demanded of all Yezidis.

At Lalish, the place where the holy temple for the Yezidis are located, a bonfire is lit to welcome Tausi Melek. The fire is the divine source of God and Sun. Eggs are boiled to represent how earth was liquid and then got solidified with the coming of Lalish. Marriage is forbidden during the month of April while the earth springs to life. Also forgiveness takes place at this time. Many who have been enemies reconcile with mediation by a priest or friend for the sake of the New Year.

One of the most salient feature of the Yezidi New Year is the Parade of the Sanjaks/Peacocks. Sanjaks are bronze lamps surmounted with peacocks. These Sanjaks are taken out from their designated homes, and paraded through the streets of the Yezidi villages.

Some Yezidis believe that the Sanjaks have strong Indian connections particularly because of their similarity with the Hindu diyas (lamps) which the Hindus light up in their temples and on auspicious occasions. There are seven Sanjaks in total, each representing six great angels and Tausi Melek. The largest and most important one is the Sheikhni, representing Tausi Melek. At night Mir, the representative of Tausi Melek attends to the Sanjaks with prayers, and offering of incense and oil is made followed by rounds of musical entertainments throughout the entire night.

The Yezidi new year has resemblances to New Year of the Hindus marked by Holi. Like the Yezidi New Year, Holi also marks the beginning of Spring. Also just as the Yezidis offer lamps (which resembles the Hindu Aarti lamps), the Hindu also have similar fire offerings known as Holika Dahan where bonfires are lit the day before Holi followed by singing and dancing.



On the day of the Holi, natural colors are used to show love for each other as divine living entities. The use of colors in both the cultures on New Year day as well as the lighting of lamps in both the cultures point out to inherent connections in the essence of the two beliefs that binds both the Hindus and the Yezidis, two most ancient civilizations on earth.

http://www.newsbharati.com/Encyc/2015/3 ... tions.aspx

[Piling]

The Yezidi calendar is dated to be 6764 years old, therefore, it has its origin about 4764 years before the arrival of Christianity and more than 5000 years before the arrival of Islam.

Assyrians say also that their Akito-New Year started more than 6000 years ago. Holy crap, I wait for Kurds stating that Newroz in fact was celebrated by Neanderthal culture to beat them all

[Anthea]

According to Director of Ezidi affairs in KRG so far 1501 Ezidi rescued from ISIS captivity & there are more than 3000 Ezidi in ISIS hands

(unconfirmed)