The injustice of the Yazidi genocide continues after 11 years

The Yazidis are Kurdish-speaking people, most of whom live in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Because they are not Muslim, they were a target of Islamic State terrorists who killed and imprisoned them by the thousands in a genocidal campaign. In this episode of Human Rights magazine, Maiya Karsan explores the ongoing tragic story of the Yazidis since the brutality they suffered in 2014, and the general failure to protect and support many of those who survived. As a trigger warning, the last section of this episode includes a brief first-person account of sexual assault, which some listeners may wish to skip past to listen to her account of successful escape.

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Transcript

Intro by Derek MacCuish:  The Yazidis are Kurdish-speaking people, most of whom live in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Because they are not Muslim, they were a target of Islamic State terrorists who killed and imprisoned them by the thousands in a genocidal campaign. In this episode of Human Rights magazine, Maiya Karsan explores the ongoing tragic story of the Yazidis since the brutality they suffered in 2014, and the general failure to protect and support many of those who survived. As a trigger warning, the last section of this episode includes a brief first-person account of sexual assault, which some listeners may wish to skip past to listen to her account of successful escape.

Host  Maiya Karsan:  

 Hi, my name is Maiya, and in this episode, I will explore a critical human rights issue - one that is often overlooked - the continuous injustice faced by the Yazidi people. 

In August 2014, ISIS militants carried out a genocide against the Yazidi community in Sinjar, a region in northern Iraq. Thousands of Yazidis were enslaved, tortured, and killed. Women and girls were subjected to horrific sexual violence. More than 6000 women and children were abducted, and to this day, approximately 2700 are still missing. 

To give you a bit of context, the Yazidis are an old religious minority from Mesopotamia. They believe in the peacock angel - a figure that has been wrongly interpreted as a devil by some Muslim communities, leading to centuries of persecution. 

And yet, especially in the West, this issue is underrepresented and unaddressed. Thousands of Yazidis still live in displacement camps, and those who have returned to Sinjar are faced with a lack of electricity, clean water, and solid infrastructure. 

Today, I’ll be speaking about this issue with three guests. First, Mr. Murad Ismael - a Yazidi from Sinjar, former director of the NGO Yazda, and co-founder of Sinjar Academy. I’ll also be joined by Reverend Majed El Shafie, founder of One Free World international, an organization that works to protect persecuted religious minorities. At the end of the episode, we’ll hear the powerful story of Basema - a Yazidi genocide survivor who is now living in Toronto with her three children. 

So first, Mr. Ismael, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your involvement with the Yazidi community?

Ismael:

Yeah, definitely, so I am Yazidi myself. I'm from Sinjar originally. I came to the US in 2009

to basically, really, I was working for the US military. So I came here with with, like, resettlement. So I started my life here, studying geophysics and engineering. Then

that the Yazidi issue happened. 

So it kind of changed the way that I was really, changed my life in a big way. So started with other Yazidis in the US, the advocacy we did in 2014 and beyond which, which, which, which led to creation of Yazda, and the work that we did in Yazda term of advocacy or accountability, passing resolution in multiple countries. You know, documentation project we did in Iraq. The other things we did was kind of the direct, just aid and support to the Yazidi community. So in many ways, Yazda became like the, probably the strongest Yazidi global organization, or international organizations involved in both advocacy the humanitarian aid to the Yazidi community and to Sinjar so and I was in I was with Yazda until kind of beginning of 2019 then I left yazda, and for past three years, I've been involved with the Sinjar Academy. Sinjar Academy is another organization we built which is focused on providing education to the Yazidi community and to people of Sinjar in general, with the goal of becoming a university in the future, like a nonprofit university in the future. It's focused on providing, you know, English, German, computer science and other kind of courses that we provide right now in Sinjar, both in Sinjar and also online. Yeah. So what motivated me really to do this is just really what the scale of the issues the Yazidi community faced, and being from there myself, you know, even some of my family members were not, not very close family members. Let's say my my aunt’s son was killed. He was a disabled person. My other relatives, some were impacted. Some neighbors were killed. So it was a lot of people, some classmates from the school. So it was really almost, I think every Yazidi got, got impacted.

Host:

Thank you for the introduction, and for being so vulnerable with your response. I would now like to turn it over to Reverend El Shafie - can you tell me about yourself and what motivated you to get involved in the recovery of the Yazidi community?

Rev. El Shafie:

So my name is Reverend Majidi Shafi. I'm the founder and president of one free world International. it’s a human right organization based and Toronto, Canada, but we have branches in more than 28 different country and basic, basically, helping the minorities in the front line is one of our main goals. 

So there's such as the Yazidis in Iraq, the Christians in the Middle East and Asia, Ismailis, Falun Gong, Tibetans in China, the Baháʼís, wherever there is persecution happening to the minorities. We always will be there to support them, of course. So of course, as well, we stand against the rise of the anti-Semitism that we see today, after October 7, which is a very sad reality. Now another part of our organization, besides advocating, but also risking mission and hemitry and aid and a medical supplies, which will lead us to my personal story. 

I was, I was tortured back home in Egypt, and I came because I'm a Christian, because I'm a Muslim, convert to Christianity, and it's not a matter of debate of religion. It's a matter of freedom of religion and because I believed in the freedom of religion, and I converted to Christianity. I was I was tortured severely back home in Egypt. I escaped to Israel, and through the intervention of Amnesty International and UN, I came here to Canada. This was more than 20 years ago as landed political refugee, the start of one free world International, because I wanted to help people used to be in the same position, like myself. So I didn't want to be sitting down doing nothing. The torture, the scars of my body, the pain that I faced, the nightmares that I have in the night ignited my calling, not my job, but my calling to help others. And from there, we started missions to help the Yazidis. We rescue more than 600 Yazidi girls from the slavery in ISIS. We send humanitarian aid, medical supplies.

Host:

Thank you. So you both spoke about how you’re actively working towards helping Yazidis today in 2025 - 11 years after the genocide took place. So what’s the situation like now in the Sinjar region? Mr. Ismael - would you like to respond to this question?

Ismael:

Yeah, so, so you know in Iraq in general, ISIS is not in control anymore. ISIS has been defeated militarily. Of course, there are still pockets of ISIS in places inside Iraq, mostly the like Western deserts, some of the areas, they are not in Sinjar at all, but they are in other parts of Iraq, they are still present, not controlling territory, but potential of them, you know, committing attacks or attacks or crimes. Still the still rest is there, I think, with the whole situation in Syria now, as you know, the regime change and the control of HTS, the HTS control and other Islamist groups controlling Syria with one of the biggest question is, how ISIS will be benefiting from that? 

Host:

And what’s it like for the Yazidis there?

Ismael:

Of course, it's not as bad as 2014

but still, for example, we have 2700

Yazidis still captive. In captivity. They still have not been rescued. And initially was 7000 but now we have still 2007 and 700 more than 2700 were still captive. The situation, of course, it becomes much more difficult to rescue them, especially there's no.

um like real organized effort to rescue them,

Yazidi community, also, about half of them have then returned back to sinjar so about half of them still live at the IDP camps or the __ region. There was never like a strong program to help the people go back to their homeland. Actually, the process, or the paperwork process, for the return now has been completely stopped because of the political issues between Baghdad and Erbil, and they agreed to kind of stop the process of IDPs return so people now have the available everyday from the camps. Want to go back. You cannot go back. That's the issue of IDPs, return. The other issues, for example, include the situation with the Arab groups inside sinjar, Arab groups,  PKK presence, Turkish air strikes on sinjar, the PMF, the the Iran back pmf also is in sinjar. So it's really and the conflict between Baghdad and Erbil on sinjar, which on the yazidi territory really make it almost impossible, or have made it very, very, very difficult for the recovery, for like, rebuild of the economy, revolt of the area. So sinjar still not doing well, even though other areas of Iraq are being rebuilt.

Host:

So has the Iraqi government or the international community played a role in trying to improve this situation?

Ismael:

I think, yeah, I think NGOs have largely withdrawn from Iraq in general, like there is much less funding going through the NGOs. A lot of the work that was done in sinjar was actually by the NGOs. And then profit money was not the iraqi government money. Most of it was, was like foreign money USA paid a lot of, you know, for a lot of the projects, a lot of American money, some European money, that was used as well. But really, almost everything was built was, was the money that came from the international community, very little by Iraq as a as a country as you know, the focus of the international community has has changed, and, for example, with US now even stopping the whole the whole foreign aid for 3, months for everyone. And I don't expect much more to come from the international community, but I mean, that will be good if the international community will still invest the recovery of the yazidi community after genocide, but I don't expect that will be much higher. But at least you know, if the international community could, could pressure Iraq war, because Iraq is a wealthy country. They sell a lot of oil and they have money. They can allocate money, but it's just Yazidis do not have a strong political presence in the country. 

Host:

Reverend El Shafie - is there anything you want to add?

Rev. El Shafie:

Well, you have to answer the question first of all, how much corrupted Is the Iraqi government? The Iraqi government and the Kurdish government? Let's just be honest about that. So let me put it in a concept so both of us will be on the same page. To have the law is one thing I can give you the best constitution in the world.

But to Implement the law is something else.

So to pass the law to look like you're doing something internationally, and you look like, you know, you look like you're kidding and so on, is one thing. To implement the law on the on on the ground, is different story. In reality is different story. I see the Iraqi government and the Kurdish government actually used and abused the aid that came to the Yazidis and other minorities, especially during the war, and the majority of them ended in the black market. I'm sorry. I saw that there is a lot of corruption. I saw that today, the aid and the help that they presented to the community is really not effective, and today you found people still in the refugee camp. Why? Why? Why are not rebuilding their land in sinjar Mountain and help them to go back again to their home? Because the more that they keeping them leveraging they can control their land and they can control them. But you want to tell me, after 10 years of the war, you are unable to resettle them back again to their home in sinjar mountain and elsewhere. You know, is a horrible. Is a horrible so the Iraqi Government can pass whatever laws that they want. They can implement whatever very beautiful statement as they wishes. They can make all of this beautiful promises, all of these beautiful institutions on papers, but with my all due respect, their corruption, their lack of action, is very, very clear that They really, their desire to help does not exist. I

Host:

So if the Iraqi government isn’t playing a significant role in creating positive change, and may even be contributing to the Yazidis’ worsening conditions, are NGOS or any other actors stepping in to make a more meaningful impact?

Rev. El Shafie:

The NGOs been trying to help in the especially in the beginning of the war. We are one of the NGOs that when we send the aid, many of our aid ended in the black market. I cannot prove it, but I know from the team on the ground, from the people on the ground. So today, the NGOs that you are talking about also have a very limited resources. So the NGOs right now will help in Gaza, for example, or will help in Ukraine, or will help in Sudan. Remember, it's not the only disaster that exists. So the NGO did help in the beginning. Now, my our questions not just NGOs. NGOs and governments helped a lot in the beginning during ISIS. my question, where all of this aid went? Why this aid? Why this aid is not today? Did not change the people's life. You know? Why people are still in the refugee camp? What did you do with this aid? You know? And this is something that the Iraqi government and the Kurdish government have to

respond to. 

I don't see it. And even governmental or not, once again, the NGOs have a very limited resources, and we have a lot of problems, you know, the governments when they give aid, and this is something that also the Canadian government and all the international governments have to respond, why did not have an accountability? You have embassies on the ground. You had forces on the ground. You know? Why did not implement accountability to the aid that you was giving to the government. 

Host:

I see, I see. Thank you both for sharing your insights into this topic. Based on what you have both shared today, it is clear that the reconstruction of the Yazidi homeland is something that requires a lot more attention and action from the international community. Before I let you go, I have one more question for you: What are your feelings for the future surrounding this topic? Mr. Ismael, would you like to start?

Ismael:

I would really disappointed about, you know, the future. I think,

I think the Yazidis tried their best.

You know, it's also a lot of Yazidis want to leave Iraq. They want to leave. But with the International community, as you see, nobody wants migrants anymore. Nobody wants to take people in. Some Yazidis were due to come to the US before Trump came to power. They now even stopped that whole process, like legal process. They stopped it so nobody takes refugees legally. There is no path for illegal migration anymore. So Yazidis are like stuck there, but they are stuck there without, without enough power to protect their rights and their presence, their existence. So it is. It's very difficult situation. I'm really not hopeful about, about the future at all for the Yazidis or the minorities in Iraq. You know, I think, I think we've seen the decline of minorities in Iraq and Syria, and that decline will just continue until nobody is there anymore. 

But again, you know, now with with migration being so difficult, everywhere they will go,

yeah, Yeah. I mean, it's everybody says, My country first,

what happens to people who don't have a country like who don't have a they're not strong enough to defend their their their areas? It's really, it's so there is definitely like, you would think there's something international human rights. You think there's something like real but in reality, when things like genocide happens, you know, there's nothing. It's just a big lie. It's just a big lie. 

Host:

Reverend El Shafie - do you share similar feelings?

Rev. El Shafie:

I am worried that the genocide will happen to them again. I am worried that, basically, the extremists will attack them again. I think the Yazidis and their territory have to be protected by international community and create an international zone around them and in order to protect them. Quite honestly, I don't think that they are capable in protecting themselves. I don't think that the Iraqi Government will give them a weapon to protect themselves, self-defense. I think that they, as long as they will always a minority, a vulnerable minority, they will always be under attack. And I will ask the international community to declare their territory as a green zone, protected green zone by the UN or what, or NATO, whatever, or EU, whatever it is or UNESCO and in order to protect them, but I am concerned about this genocide will repeat itself again. 

Host:

Although discouraging to hear, thank you both for sharing your honest opinions on this subject. It’s important that listeners and I are aware of this issue, and I appreciate your responses. Now, I want to continue with a story from Basema. Basema is a Yazidi woman, and a survivor of the Yazidi genocide. In 2017, she resettled to Canada and is currently living in Toronto.

Basema:

My name is Basema. I am Iraqi, Sinjar. I'm born in Sinjar,

Host:

Basema was born in a village in Sinjar named Kocho. She lived with her husband, two sons (aged 7 and 11) and a daughter (aged 4). She told me about how ISIS militants came to her village on August 3rd, 2014 and demanded that everyone hand over their money and gold. ISIS separated the men and women, and killed many people on the spot, including her husband. They also abducted her 4 year old daughter. Basema and her sons were brought to a Syrian city, Raqqa, where she was separated from her eldest son who was forced to convert and fight. Basema shared a very harrowing and traumatic experience she had with an ISIS man in Raqqa, who handcuffed her, and brought her to a private room. This was the first time she was sexually assaulted. Her son was in the room next door. In the following recording where Basema describes her experience, she uses the word “marry” or “married” when referring to sexual violence. 

Basema:

He told me, I have to marry you. Yes.

No, you Muslim, I’m Yazidi.  

He says no we have to. 

I cry no just no. 

He says, stop. I have a knife. I kill you with knife. We have knife, is big. He told me, I have knife. He says You not Muslim, you Yazidi. I have to marry you. 

I'm just No. I'm just No. Kill me. No marry me. Kill me. It's very hard. It's very hard. I,  I crying.  I'm saying, Please kill me now. Why not kill me.

After, another. Another guy.

Host:

Basema and her 7-year-old son were also forced to cook and clean for ISIS members. Basema recalls a specific day when a Muslim woman somehow involved with ISIS came by to the house and told Basema she would help her. In this next recording, Basema explains how this woman helps call her dad to tell him she’s alive. 

Basema:

And this woman says, I come help you. And says, Yes, please. She

This is ISIS the woman, not their eyes.

She woman the ISIS. She Muslim,

she Muslim them be because she don't have money too much. She come help me. She asking me, you have you dad number? And says, Yes, of course, I have my dad. And understand in the mind,

yeah, he, told me, I'm help you can you that help me. Pay for me. And says, believe me, my Dad, help you. But only you told me you go there because we don't have Wi Fi in the syria too much. We don't have some people buy Wi Fi only at home.

We don't have any. Every house in the syria Wi Fi don't have it.

She says, I have Wi Fi. And says, Okay, I'm writing because I understand my my dad's number,

and I'm writing in that paper. I give it to her. She called my dad. She says, I see you daughter, and we have one son with her. Oh, my dad is crying with her,

crying because two years and five months, my dad never listened to me.

My dad is crying. 

Host:

After this interaction, the woman writes down her number and hands it to Basema. 

At this time, Basema is also very sick. She begs an ISIS member to find her 11-year-old son so that he can visit her. The ISIS member accepts, and reunites the son with her for two days. As soon as her eldest son arrives, she plans their escape for the next morning before dawn. 

 Basema:

let's go. And isis a sleeping with

morning six. Six like night is because dark

and six o'clock, I asked sleeping, everybody I opened the door slow. I opened the slow. I told my kids, go two kids. And told go new first, I come second. And had that and have all is go first, and he going, and he's looking the black one I'm looking he, he going after I slow, slow, very slow. I take my shoes. I walk in no shoes, because I'm just, I know, be quiet and all listen the shoes. 

Host:

They escape the house successfully and she hails a taxi. They ride in the taxi until she spots a man spoking. 

Basema:

and go that now another house is smoking because I says it says haram, no smoking,

no halal. Says haram, no smoking,

and he's smoking. I told taxi, stop, stop here. Says, okay, stop taxi. 

Host:

Basema tells the man smoking that she would ask her dad to collect money from the people in her village in exchange for temporary shelter. The man reluctantly accepts. After a bit, Basema leaves his house with her two sons and walks for days. Their destination: Kobani - a Kurdish-majority city in Syria.

Basema:

I go in three days, three days, me and 2kids and two son. I'm walking, believe me, no eating, no food, no no drinking, no food, nothing, not sleeping, only walking, only walking. Oh, believe me, I too much. Me and my kids walking. 

Host:

Basema and her sons are close to Kobani when she meets someone who speaks Kurdish - her first language. 

Basema:

I said I see one guy speak like me. I speak Kurdish. Oh.

I i Happy.

I happy because he speak kurdish. I happy. And since, and says, Hi, how are you since I'm great. How about you? I'm says I'm correct. Says where you go? And says it's okay you come in the part that this guy says, Yeah, of course, I'm a speaker Kurdish. And says I'm Yazidi, I'm today, three  I'm walking, believe me, I know more than walking because my leg is worse, my back is worse. I need something eating because three day, no eating anything, no drinking water,

is because headache was hurt, because no thinking. He told me, You Yazidi, I'm Yazidi, yes, I'm Yazidi. Oh, he give me hug, give my kids hugs. Oh, I'm happy. Leave me. I'm happy. After he picked me and to Kobani, he take to Kobani, take me and Doctor. Doctor, sir, oh, my God, because his stomach it hurts. He treats no eating no drink water, give it to me medicine, and after every two minutes, give it to me and my kids. Eat. Please. Eat, please. I said, No, I no eat only because now I not scared. No, isis, nothing. I'm happy every time night I told my kids, come sleep with me. Come sleep with me. Every time I like this one once, and here, one side, here, because I'm scared.

Host:

She finally returns to Iraq. It is only then when her mother reveals that her daughter was alive and returned to the village. This was the first time Basema saw her daughter in over a year. 

IOM helped her and her family and on July 17 2017, she arrived in Canada. 

The stories shared today were distressing, discouraging, and horrific, but I want to conclude this podcast on a more hopeful note, so I will end it off with a quote from Reverend El Shafie. 

Rev. El Shafie:

The most important thing that you need to remember before I close this call and I know that the timeline is finishing, never give up. Yes, we are concerned. Yes, there is fear, but we never give up. And this is for everybody that listening, for everybody that reading your article. He can kill the believers, but he cannot kill the belief of our hearts. He can kill the dreamer, but not the dream. I promise you that after every night, there is new money carrying New Day, giving up is not an option. Will continue fighting for human rights and will continue fighting to help others.