It has been more than a decade since the Islamic State (ISIS) seized much of northwestern Iraq and unleashed a genocide against the 400,000 Yazidis in and around Sinjar, killing 3,000, and kidnapping nearly 7,000 Yazidi women and girls to convert them forcibly to Islam and/or traffic them as sex slaves. ISIS also forced enslaved Yezidi boys to convert and become ISIS soldiers. ISIS declared Yazidis, the second largest religious minority in Iraq after Christians, as “apostates,” falsely disputing Yazidism’s monotheistic nature and tarring Yazidis as heretics due to the integration of some Zoroastrian elements with Islamic beliefs in its practice.
On October 26 and 27, 2019, U.S. forces and their Syrian Kurdish counterparts surrounded ISIS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who detonated a suicide vest as forces closed in, killing himself and two children. While many in Washington celebrated his demise, they wrongly concluded that Baghdadi’s death marked the end of Yazidi trauma.
More than five years after Baghdadi ended his life, some 280,000 Yazidis still live in internally displaced persons camps in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region across the Erbil, Sulaimani, and Duhok governorates unable to rebuild their homes due to ongoing disagreements between the Kurdish Regional Government and Iraq’s federal government over Sinjar’s administration rights. Nearly 3,000 Yazidi women and children, meanwhile, remain in ISIS captivity—forgotten or ignored. Over 80 Yazidi mass graves remain unexhumed.
Thousands of Yazidis now live across 21 restrictive camps and on the roadsides with makeshift kitchens and no sanitary amenities.
As Yazidis remain in limbo, historians and regional experts now seek to put the Yazidi genocide in context. A new documentary, 10 YEARS ON: The Yazidi Genocide, documents the Yazidi plight through testimonials by formerly enslaved Yazidi women detailing their lives as Islamic State captives. Historians and regional experts provide a backdrop as some also argue that the Islamic State’s efforts to assert “strategic territorial control,” seize Yazidi wealth, and sexually enslave Yazidis had precedent in Ottoman actions in previous centuries. The documentary also shows the appalling conditions of the massive tent camps where thousands of Yazidis now live across 21 restrictive camps and on the roadsides with makeshift kitchens and no sanitary amenities. A generation of Yazidi children have matured to adulthood in tents or on strips of gravel.
Both Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump adopted the term “genocide” to describe the Islamic State’s atrocities against the Yazidis, but they and the Biden administration failed to secure the release of thousands of enslaved Yazidi women and girls who remain trapped, some with their victimizers in northeastern Syria’s al-Hol refugee camp. The Western world that wrings its hands about the Yazidi genocide and virtue signals by honoring survivors owes Yazidis closure.
While the Biden administration talks about leaving Iraq, the dynamics are in place for genocide renewal. The Islamic State is not defeated, and those who seek to prey on the Yezidis remain. In such circumstances, the transfer of some Islamic State families by the Iraqi government into Sinjar is akin to throwing a match into kindling. The incoming Trump administration should recognize that Iraq’s Yazidi and Christian populations remain vulnerable and undertake no action that could further imperil them.
“The Islamic State tried to erase us, but they failed.”
The incoming U.S. administration should recognize that a desire to withdraw completely from Iraq and a commitment to prevent genocide are mutually exclusive. A State Department report from earlier this year confirms the “Islamic State still poses” a threat in the region.
A U.S. military presence to prevent a vacuum that the Islamic State could fill is necessary, but it is not enough. The State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development also should allocate funds to trusted non-governmental organizations in Sinjar to build dignified housing for displaced Yazidis along the model of the New Kocho Village. Essential post-traumatic and psycho-social resources also must be provided to reintegrate the formerly enslaved and those trapped in refugee camps for a decade.
Yazidis’ steadfast commitment to preserving their religion, language, and cultural heritage against local government pressures and looming Islamic State threats is admirable. As Faiza Qasim, a freed Islamic State slave returning to her hometown, now a ghost town, explained, “The Islamic State tried to erase us, but they failed.” That is a powerful message to send to Islamists who still seek to impose their values and tyranny on peoples across the region. Rather than snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, it is essential that the United States and other world powers do not fail the Yazidis again, 10 years on.
To coordinate educational/community screenings of 10 Years On, contact jackie@globalcadence.org
