Yazidi Genocide: 10 Years On, The Suffering Of The Community Continues
Forbes
Aug 3, 2024
Dr Ewelina U Ochab is a Forbes contributor, lawyer, and author.
[August 9, 2014] Thousands of Yezidis were trapped in the Sinjar mountains as they tried to escape credit: 2014 Anadolu Agency
On August 3, 2014, Daesh (also known as ISIS, ISIL, or IS) launched a devastating attack on Sinjar, inflicting widespread atrocities on the Yazidi community. The terror group killed thousands, predominantly targeting men and elderly women, while abducting boys to forcibly conscript them as child soldiers. Thousands of women and girls were kidnapped and subjected to sexual slavery and violence.
To this day, over 2,600 Yazidi women and children remain unaccounted for. Daesh’s crimes included murder, enslavement, deportation, and forced displacement. The group systematically imprisoned, tortured, abducted, exploited, abused, raped, and coerced women into marriages across the region. In the days following the Sinjar assault, Daesh expanded its campaign of terror to other communities in the Nineveh Plains, causing 120,000 people to flee in the dead of night in a desperate bid to save their lives.
The atrocities perpetrated by Daesh against the Yazidis, Christians, and other religious and ethnic minority communities have been recognized as meeting the legal definition of genocide by the United Nations and several countries (both governments and parliaments). However, the determination was not followed by any comprehensive responses ignoring the very duties the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) bestowed upon States - the duty to prevent and the duty to punish genocide.
Ten years after the attack on Sinjar, these duties still apply. Why?
Because this genocide is ongoing. Over 2,600 Yazidi women and children are still missing and there has been no international effort to get them back. Because the discriminatory narratives that enabled the genocide are still present. Among others, in 2023, reports suggested an increase in hate speech and rhetoric against the Yazidi community in Iraq.
Because the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Daesh/ISIL (UNITAD), the U.N. Security Council-established mechanism to collect and preserve evidence of the genocide is closing in September 2024 and there is no plan to continue this work to ensure justice and accountability, empower victims/survivors to testify and be assisted throughout the process, and help them to move on with their lives (including by exhuming mass graves and establish what happened to their loved ones).
Because Yazidi internally displaced persons (IDP) camps are being closed and Yazidis are being pressured to return to Sinjar - without any adequate assistance, without infrastructure in the region and no security assurances, with Turkey bombing the region with impunity.
The list goes on.
In October 2023, the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) of the U.K. Parliament launched an inquiry into the U.K.'s responses to Daesh. The JCHR confirmed that the evidence they have received shows that there have been no prosecutions in England and Wales of returned Daesh fighters for international crimes, such as genocide and crimes against humanity. Among others, concerns have been raised regarding the lack of coordination between relevant departments and issues with evidence sharing. Significant concerns were also expressed about the repatriation of Britons in Syria and Iraq and the use of deprivation of citizenship orders. The JCHR has never published a report from the Inquiry, as its work concluded due to the general elections and the dissolution of Parliament. The important work of the JCHR must continue. Furthermore, other countries should examine their responses to Daesh, identify shortfalls and introduce changes that would enable better responses in the future.
The suffering of the Yazidi community will continue and the community will not be able to move on with their lives until the truth about the atrocities is established and the perpetrators are brought to justice for the true nature and scale of the atrocities that targeted the annihilation of the community in the region. And as long as there is no justice for the community, their future is not secure as impunity always begets further crime. States and the international community as a whole must end the impunity and send a strong message - that one cannot get away with genocide. This is a message that continues to be relevant 10 years after the horrific atrocities against the Yazidis.
Dr Ewelina U Ochab is a Forbes contributor, lawyer, and author. Dr Ochab is a senior programme lawyer with the IBA's Human Rights Institute.
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