Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

[Anthea]

Tirst Yazidi commercial pilot

Born in Iraqi Kurdistan and transferred to the UK at the age of six, Levan Ibrahim is no ordinary 20-year old

Click on Photo to Enlarge:


Ibrahim is graduating from Spain-based flight school FlyBy in mid-2021, becoming the first Yazidi to ever pilot a commercial flight.

Stuck in the UK because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Levan tells us his story, why he decided to train to become a pilot and the positive impact his decision has had on his community.

Why did you want to become a commercial pilot?

Levan Ibrahim (LI): To be honest, it’s a bit of a funny story because at first, I didn’t want to become a pilot but a cabin crew member.

One time I was on a Ryanair flight from the UK to Germany and that was when I fell in love with aeroplanes. I remember walking in and looking on the left at the cockpit with all the buttons, and it was a moment: I just fell in love and I knew I wanted to do this.

And bear in mind, I was really young back then. I just got that idea [of becoming a pilot] I kept following that dream until now.

Why did you choose FlyBy and how did you get in touch with them?

LI: I had no idea about [the existence of] FlyBy until the last minute. I was looking into other flight schools and I was particularly interested in another one, but then one of my friends sent me the link to FlyBy’s website.

I remember looking at it and thinking it was too good to be true, especially because the other schools I was looking into offered less training and charged doubled compared to FlyBy. So, I decided to call the CEO, asking if everything was as advertised and I told him I was really interested.

We talked and he gave me a lot of information and, [after that], I just went for it.

What was your experience at the school like and what part did you enjoy the most?

LI: Having already done my private pilot training in the UK, I was already ahead of a lot of the students when I went to FlyBy, so I went straight into flying. When I started at the school, FlyBy was needing a lot of improvement, but [since then] the school listened to the feedback we gave and made a lot of improvements.

Now, FlyBy has become such a big school, giving a lot of quality training not only when it comes to the ground school but also the flying, which was amazing even back then.

It was mainly the ground school that needed improvements but from what I have heard it’s better compared to what it was before.

[The part I enjoyed the most during my time at FlyBy] was meeting a lot of new people and gaining a lot of knowledge from people all over the world.

How was your learning impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic?

LI: As I started my course in 2019, Covid-19 didn’t affect me a lot, especially when it came to classes and flight [hours], but when it came to exams, I was affected because they kept getting cancelled. FlyBy did the best it could to keep them going, but unfortunately, they had to be cancelled and because of that everybody went back to their countries, and I went back to England.

Being home [in the UK] with family and friends around me, I didn’t put my head down and study enough. I was out, helping my father or too busy to study so yes, [the pandemic] had an effect on me.

What lessons that you have learnt at the school have particularly struck a chord with you and that you will always remember?

LI: [The lesson that I will remember is] that anything is possible. Also living in a different country [teaches you] to become more mature and responsible.

That’s the kind of thing FlyBy teaches you, not directly but you learn all these lessons as you go along. FlyBy puts everything in your hands and tells you to organise your life by yourself, teaching you how to be mature and responsible as well as how to manage your time effectively.

Let’s talk about the future. You will be graduating from FlyBy in June/July. Do you think that the current pandemic will impact your work opportunities?

LI: I don’t have any expectations of finding any work [soon], but I hope something will change by then and there will be job opportunities.

You’re the first Yazidi to ever become a commercial pilot. What does it mean to you?

LI: Doing something so big makes me very proud of myself. The Yazidi are a minority that has been suffering for many years, not only with the advent of the Islamic State but even before that.

Being one in a million Yazidis to come out and do something like this makes me very proud and happy. I wish that more Yazidis could also [become pilots] because here in Europe or America [being a pilot is something normal] but for us, it’s something amazing, out of this world.

Do you hope your story will inspire other young Yazidis to pursue a career in aviation?

LI: I hope it will and I do believe it has [already] because recently I’ve seen online that there is a Yazidi girl in America who started training [to become a pilot]. I hope [my story] has impacted her as well as other people around me.

I do get a lot of Yazidi people coming up to me and asking what they need to do to become pilots and if I can help them. Of course, whatever I can help them with, I’d be happy to.

IGM: What are your hopes for the future?

LI: To be honest, I will take any opportunity that comes my way, but my ideal future would be to work in the UK or Germany, and hopefully fly for any airlines. I have Ryanair on my mind because I fell in love with aeroplanes and aviation on a Ryanair aircraft, so I would like to [start] my career there.

Overall, are you happy with your choice to become a pilot?

LI: I’m really happy to have become a pilot. Some people, when I tell them I’m training to become a [commercial] pilot and that I have a private pilot’s licence, are very surprised and tell me it’s amazing.

I don’t see it that way, I love flying aircraft and becoming a pilot. Some people think it’s something big but for me, it’s [just] a normal job.

https://www.airport-technology.com/feat ... ial-pilot/

[Anthea]

Yazidi girl rescued during
ISIS raid in Ankara

A Yazidi girl taken captive by the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014 has been rescued during a raid in the Turkish capital Ankara, police said on Wednesday



Two foreign nationals, one of whom was said to be a senior ISIS member from Iraq, were arrested during the raid, Ankara police said on Wednesday morning. Another suspect remains at large.

The girl, 7, was handed over to local social services, according to DHA news agency, who said the suspects had been under surveillance for some time.

According to figures from the Yazidi Abductee Affairs Office in Duhok, more than 6,400 Yazidis were abducted when ISIS took over their heartland of Shingal in August 2014, launching a brutal genocide against the ethnoreligious minority.

Over 2,800 remain missing

Several Yazidi survivors have been found in Turkey in recent years.

Two children returned from Turkey with a Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) delegation in September 2020, after a long legal battle to be reunited with their family in Iraq.

A nine-year old boy was reunited with his family in November after being taken to Turkey by a family from Tal Afar.

Syria’s al-Hol camp is also known to hold many Yazidi women and children taken captive by the terror group. Officials believe as many as 500 Yazidis are in the camp – known for holding thousands of families with suspected links to ISIS.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeas ... y/24022021

[Anthea]

Persecution in Yazidi Genocide Case

The self-described Islamic State (ISIS) is publicly accused of having committed, in addition to genocide and war crimes, crimes against humanity and persecution on the basis of religion and gender against the Yazidi, an Iraqi religious minority. Yet this religious and gender-based persecution has not been charged to date.

We argue that these charges are justified, that it is important for the prosecution to include all relevant crimes, and that the reason for the omission so far is legal mischaracterization and unjustified reluctance to engage in the practice of cumulative charging of international crimes on the national level. We urge the Office of the German Federal Public Prosecutor to support the addition of these charges.

The Case against Taha A.-J

In April 2020, the world’s first trial addressing genocide crimes against the Yazidi began at the Higher Regional Court (OLG) of Frankfurt. The Iraqi defendant, Taha A.-J., is alleged to have been a member of ISIS and, in this role, to have bought a Yazidi woman and her five-year-old daughter, kept them as slaves, and caused the girl to die of thirst in front of her mother.

He is therefore accused of genocide, crimes against humanity (killing, torture, enslavement, deprivation of liberty) and war crimes (killing, torture) under the Code of Crimes against International Law (CCAIL).

The trial of Taha A.-J. is historic in several respects. First, it will contribute to the establishment of a legal truth about one of the most atrocious crimes of recent decades – namely, the international crimes committed against the Yazidi. It is also Germany’s first trial addressing the crime of genocide under the CCAIL.

In addition, it is the first time that a suspect of international crimes is being tried in Germany when neither the perpetrator nor the victim are German nationals, the scene of the crime is in Iraq, and, most notably, the accused was not even on German soil when he was apprehended. Only on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by the Federal Supreme Court was it possible to arrest him in Greece and extradite him to Germany.

The underlying conduct took place in the northern Iraqi region of Shingal, 130 kilometers west of Mosul, where ISIS committed genocide and crimes against humanity against the Yazidi beginning in August 2014 and continuing to the present.

Within a few months, thousands of Yazidi men were killed, and women and children were enslaved. Nearly 400,000 Yazidi individuals were driven from their home region, and to this day, thousands of women and children remain missing.

Not charged in the case so far is persecution on gender and religious grounds as a crime against humanity. But this could soon change. With a recently filed motion, the victim’s counsel, on behalf of the surviving mother, requested that the legal characterization of the alleged criminal conduct be re-evaluated.

The filing of such a request is possible since the German Code of Criminal Procedure allows, under Section 265, the possibility of modifying the legal characterization of facts introduced in the course of the trial. In the case in question, the victim’s counsel has argued that the indicted crimes against humanity were committed in a discriminatory and persecutory manner against an identifiable group on the intersecting grounds of religion and gender. Consequently, persecution on these two grounds could be added to the indictment as a crime against humanity under Section 7 (1) Nr. 10 CCAIL.

Targeted on Grounds of Religion; Separated on Basis of Gender and Age

The accused in the Frankfurt trial has been indicted with, inter alia, enslavement as a crime against humanity under Section 7 (1) Nr. 3 CCAIL. But the charges do not yet acknowledge the persecution on the basis of gender and religion – itself a crime against humanity – that is evinced by the discriminatory patterns of enslavement, torture, and deprivation of liberty in this case and other similar cases.

The mass violence against the Yazidi commenced with IS attacking their villages in Northern Iraq in August 2014. Yazidi were intentionally and severely targeted because of their religion. According to expert Guido Steinberg, ISIS supporters regard the Yazidi as “devil worshippers” who, according to the ISIS ideology, are on the lowest social rung and must either be forcibly converted or destroyed.

To this end, ISIS sorted captives according to gender and age – the separation of women, girls, men, and boys that followed immediately after the attacks was undertaken for the purpose of subjecting the members of the group, initially targeted due to their religion, to distinct crimes according to their gender and age.

Older women were enslaved and forced to engage in domestic work. Younger women and girls were sexually enslaved, raped, and forcibly married. Men, on the other hand, were tortured and killed. Boys were indoctrinated and forced to convert through violence, including sexual violence, and trained to fight for ISIS as child soldiers.

This pattern of attack and violence was repetitive during the raids of Yazidi villages and areas, providing strong evidence of a systematically gendered and religiously-discriminatory commission of crimes.

According to reports by the United Nations and human rights organizations, Yazidi women and girls were traded as slaves, enslaved as domestic servants, and forced into marriages and sexual slavery. To date, more than 3,000 Yazidi women and children are being held captive by IS or are considered missing.

The enslavement and trading of the Yazidi mother and daughter in the case against Taha A.J. was therefore part of a system of reducing Yazidi women and girls to property for the purpose of domestic servitude and in which some (though not all) were held as sexual slaves.

Within this system, ISIS explicitly attempted to justify sexual slavery on religious and gender grounds. In a document entitled, “Question and Answers on Taking and Capturing Slaves” published by ISIS’s Research and Fatwa Department.

ISIS grants members permission to commit sexual violence, engage in the slave trade and to enslave non-Muslim women. The pamphlet reads: “it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a female captive” and “it is permissible to buy, sell, or give as a gift female captives and slaves, for they are merely property.”

This pattern was corroborated by eyewitnesses and participants such as Leonora M., a female German national who joined ISIS as a minor who was arrested upon her return to Germany at the end of December 2020. Leonora confirmed that some Yazidi women were bought by ISIS members as slaves, then held while been given food and water only to be sold for a higher price to another ISIS member.

In short, the differential treatment of male and female Yazidi provides prima facie evidence of the gendered basis of the persecution, while the pattern of attack and enslavement of Yazidi communities provides prima facie evidence of religious persecution.

In the course of the Taha A.-J. trial, the testimonies of expert witnesses and eyewitnesses provided corroborating information on the fact that enslavement under ISIS did not affect both genders, but was exclusively directed against Yazidi women and girls and was exacerbated by the strict gender roles prescribed by IS ideology.

The Role of the Office of Federal Public Prosecutor General

Despite the evidence of religious- and gender-based persecution introduced in the course of the trial in the Frankfurt case, the federal prosecutors’ office has not (yet) charged these crimes. The failure to charge this form of persecution fuels doubts that their significance and status have been sufficiently considered in the investigations to date. As a result, an important element of the survivors’ and wider community’s experiences of injustice risks being disregarded. However, the office now has the opportunity to rectify the omission by supporting the motion to modify the charges.

The federal prosecutor recently made a step towards accountability for sexual and gender-based crimes in the Al Khatib trial in Koblenz. In the world’s first trial addressing Syrian state torture before the Koblenz Higher Regional Court, legal teams representing survivors also saw a need for the charges to fully reflect the scope and motives of the crimes committed.

In November 2020, several victims’ legal teams requested that the evidence on crimes of sexual violence – more specifically rape and sexual coercion – collected in the context of the investigation and presented in the course of the trial be characterized and charged as crimes against humanity.

Since sexual crimes were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population (Section 7 (1) 6 CCAIL), they should not – in the Koblenz case – be exclusively charged as isolated incidents under the German criminal law. Rather, they should be charged in a way that appropriately reflects the context in which sexual violence was (and is being) committed – namely, in the context of systematic attacks, including torture, murder, and sexual violence, by the Syrian regime on individuals arbitrarily deprived of their liberty in detention facilities of the intelligence services and held under a pretence of political offenses. The fact that the federal prosecutor’s office appears to have not opposed the request indicates a potential willingness to remedy previous shortcomings in accounting for sexual and gender-based crimes.

The first verdict in the Koblenz case – and indeed, the first international verdict for atrocity crimes committed in Syria – was handed down on Feb. 24, 2021. Eyad A., a relatively low-level defendant accused of rounding up dissidents and delivering them to detention centers where they faced torture, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for aiding and abetting torture and deprivation of liberty as a crime against humanity.

The case against the main defendant, a more senior official who allegedly oversaw torture in detention centers, is ongoing, and no decision has yet been reached on whether to characterize sexual violence in these prisons as a crime against humanity.

Another promising development when it comes to gender justice in the context of universal jurisdiction is the extension in late December 2020 of the arrest warrant against a Syrian national accused of having committed international crimes as a doctor in a military hospital in Syria. He has now also been charged with attempted deprivation of reproductive capacity as a crime against humanity (Section 7 (1) 6 CCAIL).

Cumulative Charging to Account for Commission of Multidimensional Crimes

In the case of Taha A.-J., if the judges grant the motion of the legal team, it would set a remarkable blueprint for this and future trials. First, the amendment of the charges would allow for a legally complete coming to terms with the crimes committed against the surviving mother, which thousands of Yazidi women and girls have similarly endured and in some cases not survived.

Second, a cumulative indictment of genocide and persecution as crimes against humanity, including the discriminatory aspects, would take into account the intersectional dimension of the acts. For the experience of the Yazidi illustrates that persecution rarely occurs only against individuals as representatives of one identifiable group, but rather on the basis of several, intersecting grounds of discrimination, such as race, religion, ethnicity, or gender, which are closely connected and influence each other.

There are practical considerations to the amendment of the charges, too. In this context, the elements of persecution on the basis of gender and religion would even be “easier” to prove than that of genocide, because the crime of persecution does not subjectively require that the defendant intended destruction of the group “as such.”

Rather attacking a person on the basis of their gender or religious affiliation already fulfils the subjective element of the crime. In this respect, the motion of the legal team in Frankfurt is likely to play into the hands of the court in terms of evidence: in the event that the charge of genocide fails because the intent to destroy is difficult to prove – especially for a particular defendant – the group-related collective injustice against Yazidi women could at least be covered by the crime of persecution.

Yet so far, this is only theoretical. In practice, the crime of persecution under Section 7 (1) 6 CCAIL has not been charged even once.

Sexualized Violence Does Not Equal Gender-Based Violence

One of the reasons for a neglect of specifically gender-based acts of persecution that persists to this day – in the Taha A.-J. case and others – is legal mischaracterization born of a misapprehension of the meaning of “gender-based” discrimination or violence.

For example, the failure to distinguish between sexualized and gender-based violence often leads to the assumption that in cases in which no sexualized act of violence has been committed against the victim’s body, there can be no gender-based persecution.

This is as obviously wrong as it is fatal. Gender-based persecution encompasses sexual violence, but can also refer to a variety of other forms of discrimination, from division of tasks in forced labor to specific forms of mistreatment – or, as in the case of the crimes against the Yazidi, murder and enslavement – depending on the victim’s gender.

The example of the Frankfurt trial shows how lethal such a mischaracterization can be. Although the enslavement of the two Yazidi victims with which Taha A.-J. has been charged in Frankfurt does not include direct sexual acts, the defendant apparently regarded the woman and her daughter as his “property” and thus exercised gender-based power of domination over the women. This gender hierarchy enabled these acts which led to the child’s death.

A Step Toward Intersectional Justice in International Criminal Law?

By failing to adequately criminalize and effectively account for persecution on intersecting religious and gender grounds, there is a risk of inadequate prosecution, as the indictment reflects only a selection and not the full extent of the crimes the accused is alleged to have committed.

It is crucial for affected survivors and survivor communities at large that not only the defendant’s intent to destroy (i.e. commit genocide) is investigated and prosecuted but also the discriminatory intent towards groups identified on the basis of their religion and gender (i.e. persecution), which paved the way to genocide.

These are two different crimes that each warrant examination. Investigations and prosecutions must be based on an intersectional analysis of the crimes committed and harms suffered in order to grapple with the full breath of the criminal conduct without silencing any of the intersecting experiences of injustice.

In this respect, the way in which the German judiciary decides to handle the request for extension of charges on the crimes committed against the Yazidi could mean a crucial step forward for gender and intersectional justice in the context of universal jurisdiction investigations.

https://www.justsecurity.org/74943/inte ... f-charges/

[Anthea]

Yazidis have been forgotten during Covid

They need justice, jobs and a return home
By Nadia Murad

Staring at the same four walls day after day, unable to find work, reunite with relatives, or send your children to school. The Covid pandemic has rendered this bleak picture a reality for many people across the globe. Yet for many who have survived or are living through conflict, these hardships are hardly novel.

For the Yazidi ethnic minority in Iraq, Islamic State’s 2014 genocide created adversity long before the pandemic ever did. For more than six years, hundreds of thousands of Yazidis have been in camps for internally displaced people (IDP) staring at the same four walls of their tents. They are unable to find work because Isis razed their farms and businesses. They cannot reunite with relatives still in Isis captivity or attend the burials of family members whose bodies remain in mass graves.

It will come as no surprise that the pandemic has made matters worse. As countries turn inward to cope with Covid’s impact, those on the periphery of protection – the displaced, conflict-afflicted and survivors of sexual violence – are pushed further into the margins. The consequences of this abandonment will probably be just as deadly and even more protracted than the pandemic.

At present, these consequences manifest in increased vulnerability to the Covid virus and a sharp decline in mental health. In the first 16 days of 2021, 11 young Yazidis took their own lives. Clustered cases of suicide have been surfacing in IDP camps since the 2014 genocide, but a precise picture of Yazidi mental health trends is muddled by a lack of resources for research and a failure to respond to the issue’s root causes.

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There is no doubt that the atrocities perpetrated by ISIS – including massacres, enslavement, conscription and rape – have inflicted communal and individual trauma. A study published in 2018 by BMC Medicine found that more than 80% of participants (Yazidi women, aged 17 to 75) met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder. The rates reached nearly 100% for women who had survived captivity.

It is clear that in the absence of adequate support ISIS’s violence continues to harm Yazidis. But this is not the only factor exacerbating the community’s vulnerability; the trauma of genocide is continuously compounded by poverty.

Even before the Yazidi genocide, an International Organization for Migration (IOM) report identified high rates of suicide in Sinjar which it partially attributed to the lack of economic opportunity, security and religious freedom. Each of these root problems has been aggravated by genocide, displacement and the pandemic.

Yet efforts to comprehensively address them by sustainably redeveloping Sinjar are deferred and deprioritised time and again by national governments and international agencies

Earlier this month, my organisation Nadia’s Initiative met a committee of Yazidis to discuss their needs. Female survivors were unanimous in their priorities. Foremost is the desire for justice – for courts to try to sentence Isis perpetrators for their crimes of sexual violence and genocide.

Trials would serve to hold these criminals accountable. Perhaps more importantly, they would provide a formal acknowledgment of the harm and trauma endured by survivors and a recognition that the criminality of rape lies with the abuser, not the victims. Such an acknowledgment would hopefully help survivors reintegrate into their communities and lessen the emotional load of injustice.

The second – but equally critical – priority identified by the committee is livelihood support. A handful of organisations offer limited psychological care, but therapy is not a remedy for lack of income, clean water, education and healthcare. Yazidi survivors see work as a form of therapy. It keeps hands and minds busy, puts food on tables and revitalises communities. Livelihood opportunities generate hope to replace the despair that has settled in our hearts.

However neither of these priorities will be met until Yazidis are able to voluntarily and safely return home to a dignified living environment. The governments of Baghdad and Erbil have the ability to restore local governance, security and basic services in Sinjar, but political disputes have consistently undermined durable solutions.

To governments and foreign actors, Sinjar is one piece on a political chess board. But for Yazidis, it is our home, dignity, livelihoods and mental health that are sacrificed for their strategic interests. The international community must pair on-the-ground support with diplomatic pressure on Iraqi stakeholders for the sake of stabilising the Sinjar region.

The needs of many post-conflict communities have been deprioritised during the Covid pandemic. Their pathways to recovery face insurmountable odds with an international community that often neglects to provide comprehensive support to those most marginalised. Discussions around Covid’s impact must include and be led by these communities.

It is vital that we use the opportunity to rebuild from Covid to spotlight the compounded effects of the pandemic on post-conflict communities and empower them to develop a healthier, more prosperous and more peaceful future.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... adia-murad

[Anthea]

Yazidi Women Do Not Want to Be Known

AL-HOL CAMP, SYRIA - At this camp in northeastern Syria, women are often seen wearing niqab, the dress that ultra-conservative Muslim women wear to cover their entire bodies, except for their eyes

Nowadays, this religious attire serves another purpose: hide the identities of as many as 250 Yazidi women who were forced into sex slavery by Islamic State in 2014 after the terror group took their small town of Sinjar in northern Iraq.

Al-Hol is Syria’s largest camp for refugees and internally displaced persons, with a population of roughly 62,000. The United Nations says more than 80% of its residents are women and children.

Many of the camp’s female residents survived the 2014 genocide in Sinjar, where ISIS killed most of their brothers and fathers but kept them alive, forcing them to convert to Islam and marry its jihadist members. As a result, many of the women became mothers raising children fathered by members of ISIS.

More than six years later, many of these women prefer to be known as ISIS wives rather than members of the ancient religious group they were born into. They fear that by revealing their identities, they could permanently be separated from their children, according to experts and Yazidi survivors.

That fear remains, despite a decision made in 2019 by the Yazidi Supreme Spiritual Council to allow children born to ISIS fighters to live within the secluded community, reversing a previous stance the council held on the issue.

A Yazidi female survivor, who identified herself only as Layla, recently unveiled her identity to authorities.

“The Yazidi women all heard that if they returned to Sinjar, they would lose their children,” Layla told VOA. “Because of our children, we hid ourselves. However, when the decision was made that we can keep our children, I revealed myself.”

Jabir Jendo, a Syria-based researcher on the Yazidis, explained a dilemma from which Yazidi women have suffered.

“These women have children, and the fathers of these children are ISIS terrorists,” he said. “That has caused a problem for these women. They either had to abandon their children and return to their families or stay with their children and live the way they do now.”

Mahmoud Rasho, a member of the Syrian Yazidi Council, is helping to identify the Yazidi women who remain in hiding and wants to reassure them that they can continue to live with their children.

“We have information that some Yazidis are indeed inside the camp,” Rasho told VOA. “We are working to get those women out of the camp in phases.”

VOA talked to other female Yazidi survivors who said that despite returning to their communities, they continue to worry about their children’s futures, growing up with the stigma of being born to ISIS militants.

Some figures show an increase in suicide among Yazidi survivors. On Tuesday, Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced that at least 13 Yazidi survivors have committed suicide so far this year.

“The suicides are believed to be linked to the trauma caused by the Yazidi genocide at the hands of ISIS, the difficult living conditions inside the(displacement) camps, lack of prospects for the future, and economic and social problems,” the KRG said.

https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch ... t-be-known

[Anthea]

Yazidis rally for Shengal

In Oldenburg, Lower Saxony, Yazidis demonstrated against Turkey’s threat of intervention in Shengal (Sinjar)

In Oldenburg, a three-day "Vigil for Peace and Against War" supported by Yazidi organizations concluded with a demonstration. The action, initiated by the umbrella organization of the Yazidi Women's Council (SMJÊ), protested against the Turkish state's threats of intervention against the Yazidi settlement area of Shengal in Southern Kurdistan.

The march kicked off from the Schlossplatz Square. The participants carried banners demanding autonomous status for Shengal and pictures of martyrs. Many brought flags of the Shengal’s Self-Defense Units (YBŞ/YJŞ) and other Yazidi organizations.

Speakers protested the agreement concluded last October at the instigation of Turkey between the Iraqi central government and the leadership of the South Kurdistan autonomous region, which provides for a restructuring of Shengal according to the interests of Ankara, Hewlêr and Baghdad and the accompanying dissolution of the self-governing structures.

The speakers emphasized that only the YBŞ and YJŞ were considered by the Yazidi community as a trustworthy defense force as well as a guarantor for a free life in Shengal. The Iraqi government was urged to recognize the Yazidi Self-Defense Forces as the official armed forces of Shengal and to stop denying the region autonomous status.

[Anthea]

Yazidi survivor bill

After languishing in Iraqi parliament for nearly two years, a bill offering reparations to survivors of the Islamic State (ISIS) group was passed on Monday

The Yezidi Female Survivors law “is a victory for the victims of our daughters who have been subjected to the most heinous violations and crimes of ISIS genocide,” tweeted Iraqi President Barham Saleh on Monday of the legislation that guarantees job opportunities to ISIS survivors by allocating them 2% of jobs in Iraq’s public sector, along with a fixed salary and land.

Initially drafted to offer restitution solely to Yazidi women who disproportionately endured severe abuse in the hands of ISIS, the law passed applies to other ethnic and religious minorities, particularly Turkmen, Shabak, and Christians of both sexes.

The law applies to “every woman Yazidi survivor who was kidnapped by ISIS and later liberated, in addition to women and girls from the Turkmen, Christian and Shabak components who were subjected to the same crimes mentioned," reads the legislation, which also applies to men “who survived the mass killing.”

The legislation includes the first legal recognition of the Yazidi genocide by the Iraqi government, a term previously acknowledged by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

“This recognition by Iraq from the highest authority is one important step toward justice,” tweeted Yezidi activist Murad Ismael of the genocide recognition, which also applies to the other minorities.

Introduced to parliament in April 2019, a special parliamentary committee was formed to amend the draft legislation after push back.

"Some of the objections that were registered by MPs, such as those submitted by the Women's Committee to change the name of the bill to "Iraqi Women Survivors' Law " instead of Yazidis, and some other objections by the components, have contributed to the delay in passing the law,” Yazidi MP Khaleda Rasho told Rudaw English in February, describing the delay as "political" not technical.

August 3 will be considered a day of commemoration for the crimes against Yazidis, according to the new law

A general directorate for female Yazidi affairs will be established, affiliated to the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, and be based in Nineveh province.

Those eligible to benefit from the law must be approved by a committee composed of members from the ministries of justice and interior, the KRG, and headed by a judge from the Supreme Judicial Council.

Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani welcomed the move in a statement, calling for the "speedy implementation of all the points of the law because the conditions of all Yazidi female survivors, children and their families require quick and multilateral help."

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/010320214

[Anthea]

New Law for Female ISIS Survivors

The landmark bill formally recognizes the Yazidi genocide and the trauma of sexual violence, but the community still faces grave security concerns and missing men, women and children

2 Mar 2021

After nearly two years in Iraq's parliament, the Yazidi Women Survivors Law passed on Monday in a landmark for formal recognition of the Yazidi genocide.

The bill calls for compensation, rehabitation and education for survivors. It also creates a new directorate for survivor’s affairs and a civil court in the Nineveh governorate and outlines punishment for people involved in abduction and sexual crimes. The move was applauded by Yazidis as progress in addressing the destruction caused by the Islamic State nearly seven years ago.

“Today's passage of Iraq’s Yazidi Survivors Bill is an important first step in acknowledging the gender-based trauma of sexual violence and need for tangible redress,” tweeted Nadia Murad, a Yazidi survivor of human trafficking and 2018 Nobel laureate.

First submitted by Iraqi President Barham Salih to the parliament in April 2019, the draft bill was reviewed twice but each time met pushback. Some argued that the text was too narrow in scope and needed to include men and boys that were also kidnapped. Other groups fought for the inclusion of Christians, Shabaks and Turkmens who were also subjected to sexual violence.

A special parliamentary committee was formed to amend the terminology. Last month, however, the legislature failed to achieve the quorum needed for a vote. Days later, Salih called on the parliament to expand and expedite the bill.

Salih tweeted on Monday that the vote was a victory for “our daughters who have been subjected to the most heinous violations and crimes of ISIS genocide.”

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq also hailed the move as a “major step in addressing the needs of survivors of atrocities that include reparations and proof of Iraq’s commitment to address the crimes they endured.”

Some Yazidi community members have cautioned against overstating the bill’s importance. The law's passage of the law is an acknowledgement that what happened to Yazidi women and girls was real and deserves recognition and compensation, but pressing needs continue to face the community.

“We want to make sure that this bill does not constitute the end or the solution of state responsibilities to the people,” said Pari Ibrahim, executive director of the Free Yezidi Foundation. “We are pleased by this bill’s passing, but it does not solve everything.”

Last month, the remains of 104 Yazidi victims of ISIS were transported to Baghdad and given a state funeral ceremony before returning to the Sinjar village of Kocho for burial. They were killed in an ISIS attack on Sinjar in August 2014 that targeted the Yazidi community and other minority groups living in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq.

More than 10,000 Yazidis were killed or abducted by the Islamic state. A majority of the once 550,000-strong community was displaced and only about 30% of the Sinjar district’s population, which also includes Assyrians, Turkmens and other groups, have since returned.

Around 3,000 Yazidis are still missing

“Efforts must continue to find out the fate of the remaining missing and kidnapped persons, provide redress for the victims and hold the criminals accountable,” Salih tweeted.

Implementing the law also presents a new challenge amid mounting security and political instability. Public services in Sinjar remain scarce. Infrastructure in the district is still largely destroyed and security is nearly nonexistent, a Yazidi in Sinjar told Al-Monitor.

About 200,000 Yazidis are forced to continue living in displacement camps, but time is running out as Baghdad has called for their closure and for the residents to return home, despite many not having a home to return to.

Armed extremists still haunt the expansive mountain range of Sinjar, where just last week Turkey and Iran called each other’s ambassadors to discuss Turkish attacks on Kurdistan Workers Party fighters that have settled in the area after helping drive out ISIS.

“Without implementing it correctly, the survivors will not get any benefits from it,” Saad Babir, spokesperson for Yazda, an international organization that supports Yazidis, told Al-Monitor. “The bill will not end the suffering that Yazidis are still facing and dealing with on a daily basis."

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/origin ... ocide.html

[Anthea]

Once ravaged by ISIS, Sinjar
caught in new tug-of-war

Several years since Sinjar was recaptured from jihadists, a tangled web of geopolitical tensions risks sparking a new conflict that could prolong the dire situation of minority Yazidis

The Islamic State group overran Sinjar in 2014 and pursued a brutal, months-long campaign of massacres, enslavement and rape against Yazidis in what the UN has said could amount to genocide.

Sinjar is wedged between Turkey to the north and Syria to the west, making it a highly strategic zone long coveted by both the central government in Baghdad and autonomous Kurdish authorities of the north.

The tensions have terrified the few Yazidis who returned to their ruined towns, only to face the spectre of a new displacement.

"We're living in the middle of so many different threats," said one of them, 46-year-old Faisal Saleh.

"Sinjar's people are terrified that clashes will break out," he told AFP as he drove from his hometown in Sinjar into the adjacent Kurdish region to rent an apartment in case he needed to flee an escalation.

Sinjar was retaken from ISIS in 2015 by fighters from the autonomous Kurdistan region's Peshmerga and from Syrian Kurdish units, backed by the US-led coalition.

Iran-backed units from within the Iraqi Hashed al-Shaabi network of militias also took surrounding territory.

This fractious patchwork of forces delayed Sinjar's revival: the federal government had barely any presence there and international aid groups were wary of investing.

In an effort to kick-start reconstruction and get displaced Yazidis home, the Sinjar Agreement reached in October stipulated that the only arms in the area should be those of the federal government.

But it has yet to be implemented.

Explosion at any time

"The reality on the ground is stronger than these agreements. No one in Sinjar wants to let go of the influence they've earned there," said Yassin Tah, an analyst based in the region.

"Sinjar today is a zone that brings together all the conflicting agendas and rival parties of the region.

"It's in a very complicated and tense situation -- and that could lead to an explosion at any time," he told AFP.

On the one hand, the autonomous Kurdish regional government (KRG) claims Sinjar is within its zone of control.

The KRG is irked by the presence of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a rival faction operating in north Iraq for decades and whose Syrian branch helped fight IS in Sinjar.

The PKK's role also infuriates Ankara, which calls it a "terrorist" group for its decades-long insurgency in Turkey and has crossed into Iraq to bomb the PKK.

"Turkey is watching Sinjar -- and it's seeing the PKK grow more powerful there," said Tah, the analyst.

In January, Ankara upped the ante, bombing a mountainous region close to Sinjar and hinting it could invade.

"We may come there overnight, all of a sudden," warned President Recep Tayyib Erdogan.

Erdogan's veiled threat, in turn, gave an excuse to pro-Iran Hashed factions to insist on staying in Sinjar.

The Hashed swiftly announced sending new fighters to Sinjar while one of its hardline members, Asaib Ahl al-Haq said it would "block any aggressive behaviour" by Turkey.

Sinjar is suffering

Tah said the quick mobilisation was an effort to defend the Hashed's crucial smuggling route between Iraq and Syria, which crosses through Sinjar.

A top Iraqi military official in Nineveh province, where Sinjar is located, even admitted the rivalries, saying Turkey, armed groups and rival Kurds were all trying to "secure their interests via Sinjar".

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi has rushed to defuse the tensions, with a top official in his office telling AFP there was ongoing contact with Turkey to try to hold off an incursion.

If conflict does erupt in Sinjar, Kadhemi would have a lot to lose, wrote Nussaibah Younis, a visiting fellow at the European Council for Foreign Relations.

"It would undermine the political victory that the Sinjar Agreement afforded to Kadhemi (and) burnish the image of the (Hashed) and other militia groups as defenders of Iraq at the central government's expense," Younis said.

It would also "hamper the return of vulnerable displaced Yazidis to Sinjar," she wrote.

Ali Abbas, spokesman for Iraq's migration ministry, told AFP there are 90,000 families from Sinjar who remain displaced, most of them in the KRG-run region.

Among them is Mahma Khalil, the mayor of Sinjar.

"Sinjar is suffering. We need extraordinary efforts to help stabilise it," he told AFP by phone from Duhok, an adjacent area where most of Sinjar's displaced now live.

"You have to find a solution to the stability of Sinjar. You have to learn the lesson of the past."

[Anthea]

From mourning to a new life

Despite the great persecution, the people of Shengal is returning to their lands to rebuild their life. These lands teach the people to resist, to turn pain into anger



The people of Shengal, who were forced to flee their lands during the 73rd genocide, are now returning home. Shengal and its villages, towns, hamlets are starting to come to life with the return of the people.

The living spaces that ISIS had turned into ruins were left without human life, with an atmosphere of permanent mourning. These lands and people resisted the killers and turn pain into anger.

In the town of Xanesor, it is possible to see the traces of the latest genocide [carried out by ISIS in August 2014] in all streets and all glances. The people of Shengal learn to hold on to their lands by growing their anger against their enemy with their pain.

The people see the spaces in which they organize themselves as something crucial because they are aware that organization is essential for survival. The People's Assembly is one of these spaces.

The people of Xanesor draw attention to a feverish pace of work every day. Repairing ruined life is considered a part of the struggle.

Children give colour to life in Xanesor. Xanesor Park is like the heart of children; the place where they laugh despite all odds.

[Anthea]

Yazidi survivor law ratified

Iraqi President Barham Salih ratified the Yazidi survivor law on Monday in the presence a number of survivors of Islamic State (ISIS) captivity, the presidency’s media office said

"Today we remember the plight of the Yazidis and Turkmen women and their resistance to ISIS," Salih said in a speech at the celebration organized by the Iraqi Parliamentary Assembly on International Women's Day.

Initially drafted to offer restitution solely to Yazidi women who were kidnapped by ISIS, the law passed applies to other ethnic and religious minorities, particularly Turkmen, Shabak, and Christians of both sexes, and Yazidi men who survived the mass killings.

"On #InternationalWomensDay, I am proud to sign the bill for Yezidi Female Survivors into Law, an important step to help survivors of atrocities by ISIS against Yezidis, Christians and Turkomen. Justice, restitution are crucial to ensure such horrendous crimes never happen again," Salih tweeted on Monday

The Iraqi parliament passed the bill on March 1 after years of delay.

The legislation guarantees job opportunities for ISIS survivors by allocating them 2 percent of jobs in Iraq's public sector, along with a fixed salary and land.

The legislation includes the first legal recognition of the Yazidi genocide by the Iraqi government, a term previously acknowledged by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

"This recognition by Iraq from the highest authority is one important step toward justice," tweeted Yazidi activist Murad Ismael earlier this month of the genocide recognition, which also applies to the other minorities.

August 3 will be considered a day of commemoration for the crimes against Yazidis, according to the new law

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/080320213

[Anthea]

Online auctions of Yazidi captives

Six years after its gruesome assault on the Yazidi minority in Iraq, the Islamic State (ISIS) continues to sell Yazidi captives online on what is known as the “deep web” of criminal activities

A number of such sales have taken place in Turkey, indicating that ISIS militants are still able to take shelter in the country.

Most recently, a 7-year-old Yazidi girl was rescued by police posing as buyers. According to Turkish journalist Hale Gonultas, who closely follows the fate of ISIS captives, police took action after an advertisement in Kurdish and Arabic, complete with the girl’s picture, appeared online Feb. 23.

Posing as relatives of the child, the police made the highest bid and were able to detect the address of the advertiser. They raided a home in Ankara’s Kecioren district the following day and rescued the girl.

According to the official account of the incident, police and intelligence services established that a suspect, who was a ranking member of ISIS in Mosul, Iraq, had made it to Ankara, bringing along a Yazidi child as “war booty.” The man, identified only as S.O., was detained along with a suspected accomplice.

After such online “auctions,” the captives are usually delivered via “safe middlemen” who are typically criminals involved in the trafficking of drugs, arms and humans. The rescued girl remains in state care in Ankara, as Iraqi commissions dealing with missing Yazidis are working to trace her family.

In July 2020, a 24-year-old Yazidi woman, held captive in Ankara’s Sincan district, was rescued by relatives in Australia who “bought” her in an online sale. According to Gonultas, the Yazidi woman's captor — a Turkmen ISIS member from Mosul — had bought her from an online slave market in 2018. The man, who moved frequently between Iraq and Turkey, kept a home in Sincan with his two wives, four children and the Yazidi woman.

Another Yazidi woman was rescued in Ankara in October 2019. She was held by a senior Iraqi Turkmen member of ISIS, who was so audacious as to rent an apartment near a police station in Kecioren. The young woman, abducted as a 14-year-old in 2014, lived with the family of the ISIS militant and had a baby as a product of rape.

The man, who had been an ISIS emir in Tal Afar, Iraq, traveled frequently to Iraq, which allowed the woman’s brother to track him down to Ankara. The brother managed to take a picture of his sister and her captor, seizing a rare moment the man took the woman out, and went to the police. Eventually, the woman was rescued. The authorities, however, took no legal action against her captor as she did not file a complaint against him, although they had enough findings to pursue a criminal case for abduction and rape.

Another rescue saga unfolded in Kirsehir, a city not far from Ankara, in 2017, when an Iraqi Turkmen made an unsuccessful attempt to register two children as his own at a police bureau dealing with refugees. The two siblings were taken into state care, while their pictures were sent to Iraqi centers dealing with missing Yazidis. This eventually brought their adult sister to Kirsehir — a woman who herself had been an ISIS captive before relatives bailed her out.

Her parents, husband, son and a sibling were also missing. The woman faced legal barriers in claiming her siblings in Kirsehir, including having to provide DNA tests and proof that their parents were dead. Ultimately, the two children, ages 9 and 11, were handed over to Iraqi Kurdistan President Nechirvan Barzani when he visited Ankara in September.

The Turkish police’s press bulletins paint a relentless struggle against IS, with dozens of suspects rounded up on a monthly basis. Yet those efforts have failed to prevent IS militants from taking shelter, transferring money and selling people in Turkey. The bitter reality is that the IS presence in Turkey is much more entrenched than meets the eye. The police target mostly foreign members of the group, while locals remain untouched unless they stick their necks out or become the subject of complaints.

Turkish nationals from various parts of the country had heeded ISIS’ call to Muslims to join its self-styled caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Those who returned home became the helpers of Iraqi and Syrian members who sought refuge after the “caliphate” began to crumble.

ISIS members found a convenient habitat in Ankara and Kirsehir, according to two sources knowledgeable of the issue. About 200 Iraqi nationals, all Turkmen from Tal Afar, made it to Kirsehir in 2016, when ISIS began to disintegrate. More of them, including the ISIS deputy emir of Tal Afar, came in ensuing years.

Kirsehir had its own recruits. A former member of a Turkish militant Islamist group lured locals to ISIS, including his own son. In 2015, however, he reported his own daughter and grandchildren to the police to stop them from going to Syria, laying the ground for the first court case against ISIS in the city. His son and six other Kirsehir natives were killed in Syria in 2016. Yasar Kocadan, another recruiter in the area, was sentenced to seven years in 2018 following complaints by recruits’ families.

Anti-ISIS operations in Kirsehir resulted in the detention of 12 suspects in 2017, seven in 2018, 16 in 2019 and 57 in 2020. Seven alleged relatives of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi were among the predominantly Iraqi suspects. One of them was imprisoned, pending trial, in February 2020, while the other six were sent to the deportation authorities.

In Ankara, a group of shopkeepers financed recruitments in the district of Sincan, known as one of the capital’s Islamist strongholds. Abdulkadir Ercan, a former al-Qaeda suspect, stood out in the recruitment effort. He had been detained in a 2011 police raid on a house full of explosive materials, but was released six months later, along with 13 other suspects.

Ercan arranged for scores of jobless or struggling young men to go to Syria, including 21 relatives. Later, foreign ISIS members would take refuge in Sincan, including widows of slain militants who received financial support through the local networks of ISIS.

Kecioren was another Ankara district that came under the spotlight. Its outlying slums were teeming with Syrian refugees, which made it easier for ISIS to gain a foothold for recruitment. The promise of economic benefits also lured young people of unlikely profiles such as boozers, drug abusers and nightclub bouncers. The neighborhood of Hacibayram was also a major recruitment ground.

Gonultas told Al-Monitor that impoverished neighborhoods rife with drug-peddling and arms-trafficking were the main ISIS recruitment grounds in Ankara and that the recruits were drawn mainly by “the promise of lots of money and lots of women.” She singled out Oguzhan Gozlemecioglu as a leading figure, noting he had no Islamist background but would “change ideologically” to become an emir in Raqqa. “He was killed, while his brother Halil Ibrahim was captured by [Kurdish forces]. Their father served six months in jail for recruitment for ISIS,” she said.

“Buses were running from Sincan to Raqqa in 2016 and 2017. People would even go [to Syria] to see their children,” she recounted. A clan known as “the Tatlibal group,” which was involved in the recruitment of fighters, has erected an apartment block in Ankara that houses mostly Syrian and Afghan tenants, Gonultas said. “People who have been with ISIS are residing there as well,” she said.

Atilla Kart, a former legislator for the main opposition Republican People’s Party who closely followed ISIS recruitments at the time, puts the blame on the government. According to him, the inadequate efforts against ISIS have to do with the climate the government has created and the institutional erosion in the country.

Kart told Al-Monitor that police had grown reluctant to take on Islamist groups unless they receive explicit orders from Ankara. He recalled an incident in 2015, when a family, trying to trace a son who had joined ISIS, failed to set the police into action even after providing the address of a cell house in Gaziantep near the Syrian border.

Kart contacted a local police chief to help the family. “He told me, ‘You are right. The parents want us to raid the place but we cannot do so without instructions from Ankara.’ All the information was there — how many people stayed in the house and from which provinces they had come. So, that is how Turkey came to the current point,” Kart said.

ISIS militants in Turkey continue also to transfer money through jewelers and exchange offices, using the “hawala” method. The detentions are just the tip of the iceberg, with the ISIS network much larger than it is generally imagined.

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/origin ... ivity.html

[Anthea]

More fighting in Shingal

Clashes broke out between supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Iraqi army in Shingal on Wednesday during protests over the Iraqi government’s deadline for the removal of forces linked to the group in the district, PKK-affiliated media has said

The Iraqi army has given local security forces affiliated to the PKK, known as Yazidkhan Asayesh, until Tuesday to leave the area. To protest the deadline, a large number of PKK supporters from surrounding villages headed to Shingal town but were prevented from entering by the Iraqi army, the PKK-affiliated Mezopotamya Agency said on Thursday.

One civilian protester was injured during the encounter with Iraqi army, it added.

Artêşa İraqê çuyina gel a navenda #Şingal asteng dike û rêyên diçin navendê bi seyarên zirxî girtiye. pic.twitter.com/7aB1XKpxFR
— Teko Azad (@___TekoAzad_) March 11, 2021

Baghdad and Erbil reached a deal on October 9 over the governance and security of Shingal, which is disputed between the two governments. Under the agreement, security for the troubled region is Baghdad's responsibility.

The federal government has to establish a new armed force recruited from the local population and expel the PKK and their affiliated groups.

The Yazidi heartland of Shingal was attacked by the Islamic State (ISIS) in the summer of 2014. The PKK was able to control parts of the district and form a self-governing council and armed groups there, including Shingal Resistance Units (YBS).

Ibrahim Hasso, deputy co-chair of the PKK-affiliated self-governing council in Shingal, told Rudaw’s Tahsin Qassim late Thursday that they have “reached a solution” with Iraqi government over the forces, without elaborating. Thursday’s protest was organized by the council.

Although some armed groups, including those affiliated to the PKK, have withdrawn from Shingal city, Kurdish officials have claimed that their deal with Iraqi government has yet to be implemented.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/110320211

[Anthea]

Yazidi survivors learn to drive

A group of Yazidi women are gaining new independence and confidence behind the wheel of a car



Seventy-five Yazidi women and girls in the Shingal area, including some who were rescued from Islamic State (ISIS) enslavement, are taking part in a free 30-day driving training program put on by a group of local volunteers.

Kafiya Sulaiman, 18, is learning how to drive. She said that she and other girls and women from her family would not have been taken by ISIS militants if they had known how to drive.

When ISIS militants attacked the Sinjar area in August 2014, she was at home with other female members of her family. Their family car was there, but none of the women knew how to drive so they could not flee. Only the men knew how to drive and none of them were home at the time.

"Had we known how to drive, we would not have been taken captive by Daesh," said Sulaiman, using the Arabic acronym of ISIS.

She believes it is crucial for Yazidi women and girls to learn how to drive.

Thousands of Yazidis were killed and taken captive when ISIS tore through Shingal and other parts of northern and western Iraq in 2014, committing genocide against the ethno-religious minority. The bodies of many of those killed still lie in mass graves and more than 2,800 Yazidi women abducted by the militants remain unaccounted for.

Link to Article - Video:

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/130320211

[Anthea]

Yazidi women reunited with children

Bundled up in oversized scarves and coats, and squirming over lounge chairs, the 12 young children seemed startled as nine strange women with outstretched arms hurried towards them

Some of the women sobbed as they embraced the bemused toddlers, who stared at them blankly not recognising their mothers, or understanding what the fuss was about. One mother stood motionless with her head in her hands, while another stared intently into her tiny daughter’s eyes.

The nine mothers, all members of the Yazidi community, and their children, all born to the terrorists who enslaved them, had been reunited for the first time since the collapse of Islamic State in early 2019. And after two years of preparing for such a moment, the women were about to make the most momentous decisions of their lives.

The extraordinary scenes at the Iraq-Syria border crossing last Thursday were the culmination of months of lobbying by officials, including from the Biden administration, protracted debates among the Yazidi community and the determination of young mothers cruelly stripped of the children born to them to reclaim what was theirs, no matter the price.

A Yazidi woman who decided to reunite with her daughter in defiance of her community shows a necklace she bought the previous day as a gift for her.

Each of the women had used an excuse to slip away from their family. The last time most of them had been at Samalka, they had been rescued from the giant al-Hol refugee camp in eastern Syria where the remnants of Isis’s collapsed so-called caliphate were collected.

The Yazidi were allowed to return to Iraq, but their children were seized from them before the border and taken to an orphanage. Yazidi elders had since refused to allow the children to join their mothers. To the community, the children were outcasts who ccould never be assimilated into Yazidi society. The unwritten reckoning was that if the mothers chose their children, they would need to forgo their community.

Until last week, it appeared unlikely that the women, all aged between 19 and 26, would ever be able to make such a decision. The children had been banned from entering Iraq and only a few mothers had been able to enter Syria on day passes to visit the orphanage. Then came a convergence of people and circumstances, which made the seemingly impossible suddenly doable.

Nemam Ghafouri, an organiser of the Yazidi mothers and the founder of Joint Help for Kurdistan, an NGO, received a phone call from the former US diplomat and long-term contact of Kurds on both sides of the border, Peter Galbraith. The Syrian Kurds were prepared to do a deal, he told her, and he was flying to Erbil to make it happen.

Galbraith had worked on the Senate foreign relations committee for 14 years and has been a friend of Joe Biden since 1980. Like him, the new US president had taken an interest in Kurdish issues. The calculation on both sides of the border was that doing business on an issue such as this might pave the way for more extensive reengagement after the turmoil of the Trump years.

“I asked Nechirvan Barzani [the president of the Kurdish regional government] to talk to Mazloum Abdi [the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces] and he agreed,” he said.

After fraught discussions throughout Wednesday during which Galbraith called the White House to secure the transfer, Syrian Kurdish officials bundled the 12 children – who could all be definitively linked to the nine mothers waiting for them – into a minibus, and headed for the border.

Ghafouri, who had been waiting with the mothers in a hotel, brought them to the border, and waited.

In the following hours, officials in Kurdish Iraq demanded to know the provenance of the children, before clearing the mothers to reclaim them.

The women had been enslaved in their early teens from the community of Sinjar, which bore the brunt of the Isis genocide, and had stayed with the group throughout its rise and fall. Some of the mothers did not know who the fathers of their children were.

“People need to realise why some of these women have such bonds with their babies,” said Ghafouri. “When they got pregnant, it meant the end of selling and raping by new men. This child brought an end to part of their suffering. Once being pregnant and giving birth, it was the end of it. The mother stayed with one man until he was killed.”

By midnight last Thursday, the mothers were on their way to a prearranged safe house.

But news of the reunions has been met with anger by leaders of the Yazidi community. “We don’t accept this. This should be a Yazidi nation decision,” said Prince Herman, a representative of the senior Yazidi leader Prince Hazem. “The mothers are always welcome to come back home, but the children are not accepted. They can give their children to whomever they want, but they cannot live with us.

“Those people who brought back those children without asking Yazidis, or Yazidi leaders, will pay the price for what they did. There is no difference between those missionary NGOs and Isis, because they are playing with our girls and taking them from us.

The Yazidi spiritual leader, Sheikh Ali Ilyas, otherwise known as Bab Sheikh, said the women were now exiled. “Neither me or the Yazidi community will accept those children,” he said. “They are free to go wherever they want, except our community. They are no longer our issue and are free to make their own decisions.”

In the safehouse, raucous sounds of children playing echo over two floors. Eight mothers have moved into the house, with one returning to her family in a refugee camp. Those who stayed have crossed the Rubicon, and are now looking for relocation to Europe or Australia.

“I wasn’t sure what I’d do until I saw my daughter again,” said one of the mothers. “I love my mother a lot and know what this means for me. But I love my daughter too. I want a new start.”

A second mother said she was overwhelmed by the support she had felt over the past week and now realised she needed to cut ties with her society. “I have family living abroad, and even they won’t accept me. This has to change, and we’re going to make it happen. When I told my parents, they said ‘you are no longer a member of our family’.

“I am very happy that I am with her. At first she didn’t recognise me, but it’s getting better day by day. When I came back after being separated, and I realised the community wasn’t accepting us, I decided to make my life my daughter. Children are innocent. They haven’t made any mistakes.”

Yazidis have been granted resettlement in Europe and elsewhere, but the issue of children born to Isis remains vexed for governments.

“They have no safe place not only in Iraq but in the entire Middle East,” said Ghafouri. “The only thing they want is to be resettled as a group in a third country. This has been an infected wound for the Yazidi community. The only healing is reuniting those mothers who want their children and resettle them.

“We need to find solutions now. I don’t necessarily blame Yazidi communities or Kurdish communities in either Iraq or Syria, but I do blame the UN and the international community. They are victims again being victimised by those people saying they are supporting them, but not doing anything.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... is-slavery