Yezidi leader calls people to return to Shingal

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – On Thursday, the leader of the Kurdish Yezidi (Ezidi) community Mir Tahseen Beg called on the displaced Ezidi people to return to their liberated ancestral city of Shingal (Sinjar) in the Kurdistan Region.

Beg met Baroness Emma Nicholson, the chair and founder of the AMAR Foundation, an international relief organization based in London. Beg called on the international community to help the Ezidi people to return to their areas, especially to the destroyed Shingal.

Beg is the leader of the Ezidi people across the globe whose number is believed to be over 800,000. He asked the international community to protect the ethnic and religious minorities in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq from the attacks of the so-called Islamic State (IS).

“As the head of the Ezidi high committee, we have asked all the Ezidi people to return to their homes in Lalish and Shingal,” he continued. “They can go back to their home and live like before or even in a better living condition.”

After IS occupied Shingal in August 2014, a large number of the Ezidis moved to Shingal Mountain and the Kurdistan Region while others fled to the neighboring countries. IS massacred Ezidis and enslaved their women. According to Tahsin, over 10,000 Ezidis died and 7,500 remain captivated by the IS.

In November 2015, Kurdish Peshmerga forces with the aerial support of the US-led warplanes successfully liberated the city from the jihadist group. Since then, few people have returned to Shingal. Over 80 percent of the city has been destroyed and damaged by the IS and coalition air strikes.

Nicholson believes that Ezidis cannot return to their areas when there is nothing left for them, including their houses.

She noted that AMAR Foundation can contribute in humanitarian assistance, but it is the duty of the international community to secure a bright future for Ezidis and protect them from any threats.

Over 70 mass graves have been found in Shingal and Nineveh Province. The UN has recognized IS invasion and massacre as an act of genocide against the Ezidis committed.

“ISIS [IS] has sought to erase the Yazidis through killings; sexual slavery, enslavement, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and forcible transfer causing serious bodily and mental harm," the UN statement read.

"The infliction of conditions of life that bring about a slow death; the imposition of measures to prevent Yazidi children from being born, including forced conversion of adults, the separation of Yazidi men and women, and mental trauma; and the transfer of Yazidi children from their own families and placing them with ISIS fighters, thereby cutting them off from beliefs and practices of their own religious community,”  the UN concluded.

Editing by Ava Homa