The Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) General Command commemorated the martyrs in a written statement marking the 11th anniversary of the Shengal genocide. The statement described the 3 August 2014 attack as a new genocide against the Yazidi people, saying that this ISIS genocide was yet another massacre committed against the Yazidi community and that the Iraqi state and the Kurdistan Region administration remained silent and did not act in defense.
The statement recalled that the first response to the ISIS attacks came from the Kurdish Freedom Fighters, adding that YPJ and YPG forces played a key role in opening a humanitarian corridor between Shengal and Rojava, which helped save thousands of lives. Hundreds of YPJ and YPG fighters stood against the ISIS mentality. Shengal and the Yazidi community were protected. Many comrades fell as martyrs in the liberation of Shengal.
YPJ defined ISIS’ attacks targeting women as a comprehensive war with ideological and political dimensions, stating that ISIS’s jihadist and fascist mentality targets society and the values of life through women; it kills, abducts, sells, and enslaves them in the name of the caliphate. This is a direct attack against the ideology of women’s liberation.
The statement noted that the resistance led by Yazidi women turned into a struggle of dignity. It emphasized that in this century, no society can survive or preserve its culture without self-defense. The fight continues for the recognition of the Yazidi people’s identity and status, and for the establishment of their autonomous administration.
The YPJ reminded that it has rescued many Yazidi women and young people from ISIS captivity, stating that they see themselves as responsible for the liberation of all Yazidi women.
The statement said that the people of Shengal have ensured their own security through an autonomous administration based on the democratic society paradigm of Leader Apo (Abdullah Öcalan), and that the culture of self-defense, led by women, is now firmly established.
In conclusion, the YPJ declared that the struggle to liberate the women of Shengal will be their fundamental mission, and that they will be present with the Yazidi community at every moment of the struggle. On this basis, they once again promised a free homeland to the martyrs of freedom, the mothers of martyrs, all Yazidi women who lost their lives while on duty, and the Yazidi community, stating that their promise will be their struggle.
Source: ANF News
