Amnesty: Yezidi survivors attempt suicide, world must act

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – Amnesty International reported on Monday that the international community had ignored Kurdish Yezidi (Ezidi) women and girls who had been sex slave victims of the Islamic State (IS).

Amnesty stated the Kurdish Ezidi survivors need urgent care and support to recover from the horrific abuses they faced during captivity in the hands of IS.

The organization warned that some Ezidi women have attempted to commit suicide.

In August 2014, the jihadist group occupied the Ezidi city of Sinjar (Shingal) in northern Iraq.

The group kidnapped the women in the city as sex slaves and sold them in their markets in Mosul (northern Iraq) and Raqqa Province (northeastern Syria).

Additionally, IS tortured, abused, and executed Ezidis in mass graves.

Moreover, there are still thousands of Ezidi women who remain in IS captivity, and Kurdish officials are calling on the international community and regional countries to help rescue them.

“The unimaginable horrors faced by these Ezidi women and girls in IS captivity shed new light on the ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the group,” Lynn Maalouf, Deputy Director for Research at Amnesty International’s Beirut regional office, said in a statement.

“Many women and girls were repeatedly raped, beaten or otherwise tortured and continue to suffer from the trauma of their harrowing experiences,” Maalouf continued.

“These distressing testimonies highlight the urgent need for greater international support to help survivors cope with the long-lasting physical and psychological trauma of the abuse they have endured and witnessed,” she added.

Amnesty urged the international community to translate “its shock and horror at IS crimes…into concrete actions.”

A 16-year-old girl who gave birth to a baby daughter when she was in IS captivity was moved six times between different places in Syria and Iraq. She mentioned how IS militants “dehumanized Ezidis.”

“To them we are ‘kuffar’ [infidels], and they can do whatever they want. It was so humiliating,” she said, adding that her three sisters and aunt remain in captivity.

“We were imprisoned; they wouldn’t feed us; they would beat us [all] even the small children; they would buy and sell us and do whatever they want to us...It was like we were not human to them,” she explained.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany