Kurdistan PM hopes new spiritual leader brings unity to beleaguered Yezidi community

Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said in a statement on Thursday that he hoped this week's appointment of a new spiritual leader for the Yezidi (Ezidi) religious minority will bring unity to its beleaguered and largely uprooted community.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said in a statement on Thursday that he hoped this week's appointment of a new spiritual leader for the Yezidi (Ezidi) religious minority will bring together its beleaguered and largely uprooted community.

“I hope that filling the post will be a source of unity among the Ezidi population and house,” wrote Prime Minister Barzani in a statement.

On Saturday, Ezidis elected Ali Elias Haji Nasir to the position, also known as a Baba Sheikh, succeeding his father, the late Khartu Hajji Ismael who passed away early last month.

Read More: Yezidis elect new spiritual leader over a month after passing of predecessor

The crowning took place at the Ezidis' holiest site of Lalish, located in the Kurdistan Region's Duhok province.

“I’m thankful to my people, and my Mir (prince) for this great honor,” Baba Sheikh Elias, as he will now be addressed, told Kurdistan 24, stressing the importance of “peace and coexistence among all the religions.”    

The appointment comes at a time when the whereabouts remain unknown of large numbers of Ezidi girls and women abducted in 2014 by the so-called Islamic State as they took over the majority-Eezidi town of Sinjar (Shingal).

Over 400,000 displaced Ezidis now live elsewhere, mainly being sheltered within displacement camps in the Kurdistan Region. Since the rise of the terror group in 2014, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) KRG reports that it has hosted over 1.8 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees.

Barzani also said he hoped that the new appointment would “be an opportunity to end the life of displacement and would lead to the return of Ezidi IDPs as well as the reconstruction of the town,” according to his statement.

Prime Minister Barzani expressed his support for the new leader, reiterating the KRG’s firm stance on protecting the Ezidi community and all the other components of the population in the Kurdistan Region.

Nearly 10,000 Ezidi women, men, and children were either killed or abducted during the period of the terror group’s grip on Shingal.

Barzani previously called for the compensation of members of the Ezidi community who were victimized beginning in 2014 by Islamic State militants.

Read More: Kurdistan PM calls for compensation for Yezidis

Editing by John J. Catherine