The Diplomacy Committee of the Yazidi Women’s Freedom Movement (TAJÊ) sent a letter to the UN Secretary-General and 18 countries calling for the 2014 mass slaughter by ISIS to be recognized as genocide.
The letter stated the following:
“Eleven years have passed since the 74th genocide, but the wounds have not yet been healed and the tragedy has not yet been overcome.
Some 2,900 Yazidis, mostly women and children, are still being held captive by ISIS mercenaries. The fate of hundreds remains unknown. Dozens of mass graves are still awaiting exhumation, and new mass graves continue to be discovered.
In 11 years, 14 countries have recognized the August 3 onslaught as genocide. As the Yazidi Women’s Freedom Movement, we have prepared a comprehensive file on the August 3, 2014 genocide. We are presenting to you a file containing documents and information proving that what the Yazidi people in Shengal experienced was genocide. We urge you to fulfill your humanitarian duty and responsibility and officially recognize the slaughter as genocide.
As Yazidi women, we organized ourselves in 2015 under the name Yazidi Women’s Council to prevent the massacre of women and our community following the 2014 genocide. We built our organization in response to the genocide targeting Yazidi women and the Yazidi community. We expanded our efforts to empower women and enable them to protect themselves from attacks and genocides. In 2016, we established the Yazidi Women’s Freedom Movement (TAJÊ) through a congress we organized. As the Yazidi women in Shengal, we continue our work.”
The letter was sent to the following:
Presidency of South Africa
State Protocol of Italy
Office of the President of Bulgaria and Office of Diplomatic Relations
Office of the President of the Slovak Republic
President of Slovenia
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France
President of the Republic of Finland
President of the Republic of Cyprus
President of the Republic of Croatia
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Malta
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary
President of Austria
President of Greece
Prime Minister of Spain
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China
Office of the President of India
Presidency of the Arab Republic of Egypt
Lithuania
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres
Background
The city of Shengal (Sinjar) in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq is the last contiguous settlement area of the Yazidi community. Thousands of Yazidis were murdered, and thousands of women and children were taken prisoner in the 3 August 2014 onslaught on Shengal by ISIS militants. While ISIS began murdering Yazidis in Shengal, the Peshmerga left, leaving the Yazidis behind, unprotected. The guerrillas of HPG (People’s Defense Forces) and YJA Star (Free Women’s Troops) and fighters of the YPG (People’s Defense Units) and YPJ (Women’s Defense Units) came to the Yazidi people’s aid in the face of ISIS aggression. Thanks to a months-long selfless struggle, the city was liberated on 13 November 2015. After the liberation of the city, the HPG and YPG/YPJ subsequently withdrew in 2017. People who returned to their land after Shengal’s independence reformed, established defensive units and built their institutions.
The fate of thousands of Yazidis, especially women, remains unknown. Many were sold in slave markets established by ISIS in cities such as Raqqa, Mosul, Deir ez-Zor, and Al-Bukamal. However, SDF forces have successfully liberated thousands of them, reuniting them to their families in Shengal.
Source: ANF News
