Kurdistan PM calls for compensation for Yezidis
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Sunday called for the compensation of members of the Yezidi (Ezidi) religious minority that were victimized beginning in 2014 by Islamic State militants.
His remarks came during a meeting with Karim Khan, the United Nations (UN) Special Advisor and Head of the Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh (UNITAD) in Iraq.
Notably, the meeting took place a day after the exhumation process of Ezidi mass graves launched in a ceremony in the district of Sinjar's (Shingal) Solagh village, in which Karim, along with numerous religious and officials, took part. The event intended to solemnly mark the uncovering of corpses of murdered Ezidis slaughtered by the extremist group.
In a tweet, Premier Barzani referenced the autonomous region’s “ongoing support in gathering data from mass graves in Sinjar,” and efforts “to hold ISIS accountable for their crimes.”
Over 400,000 displaced Yezidis live outside their home of Shingal, mainly being sheltered within displacement camps in the Kurdistan Region’s refugee camps. Since the rise of the terror group in 2014, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) reports that it has hosted over 1.8 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees.
The UN Special Advisor, for his part, shed light on the latest legal and technical developments unfolding in plans for the prosecution of Islamic State suspects, a press release from Barzani’s office stated, adding that “the purpose of the trials is to take a lesson and thwart the events' repetition.”
Today I received SA @KarimKhanQC to discuss our ongoing support in gathering data from mass graves in Sinjar, and to hold ISIS accountable for their crimes.
— Masrour Barzani پابەندین# (@masrour_barzani) October 25, 2020
We must expose the evil ideology of ISIS & eradicate this form of extremism — compensate the Yazidi community accordingly. pic.twitter.com/0MdG1BgUlB
Nearly 10,000 Ezidi women, men, and children were either killed or abducted during the terror group’s grip on Shingal, and many remain missing.
Barzani called for “compensate[ing] the Yazidi community accordingly,” while denouncing the terror group’s “evil ideology.”
Recently the KRG and the Iraqi federal government signed a new security and administrative plan for Shingal. The agreement, welcomed by the US, UK, and UN, insists on ousting all "foreign groups" and militias now operating in the area.
Read More: KRG and Baghdad reach administrative, security agreement on Sinjar
Editing by John J. Catherine