Advocates for justice for Iraq’s Yazidi community say much more needs to be done 10 years on to address the brutal genocide it experienced at the hands of Islamic State militants on August 3, 2014, and its aftermath.
On August 3, 2014, Islamic State militants invaded Iraq’s Sinjar province brutally attacking, killing, displacing, and enslaving hundreds of thousands of Yazidis in their ancient homeland in the country’s north. Ten years on, more than 6,000 women and children remain captives of the Islamic State with nearly 2,800 still missing. Many of the displaced still live in camps which Iraq says will close.
Yazidi activists and religious freedom advocates say restorative justice is needed for the community to recover from the genocide and remain in Iraq. Speaking at Washington’s Wilson Center, they use the terms Islamic State and ISIS interchangeably.
Yazidi lawyer Natia Navrouzov of the Yazda organization, which supports genocide victims, said much of the response to Islamic State has been military “to take back territory,” but restorative justice for the victims is also needed.
“What we really need from Iraq and KRG [Kurdistan Regional Government] with support from the international community is a proper transitional justice legal framework. All the components of transitional justice. So, criminal accountability, truth telling, reparations. And what is really missing is guarantees on non-repetition. People are asked to go back but nothing guarantees that another genocide won’t happen in five, 10, two years,” she said.
Navrouzov called for an international court to try the militants from more than 80 countries which committed atrocities against the Yazidis. Iraq, meanwhile, says it will shut down a U.N. investigation team, UNITAD, documenting crimes by September 17.
“All we got in Iraq is terrorism trials, so ISIS members are just being prosecuted for terrorism, membership to a terrorism group. Survivors are not aware, not involved, often the perpetrators clearly mentioned that they enslaved Yazidis, and this is completely disregarded. We don’t know if the evidence UNITAD collected will be accessible to continue at least these prosecutions by third states, like Germany and others. So that’s very worrying. What is missing now is the component of trust,” she said.
Other activists point to Germany’s prosecution of eight Islamic State members, including three for genocide, while the Netherlands and Sweden are believed to be preparing trials later this year for such crimes.
Former U.S. representative for Virginia, Frank Wolf told the panel that another way to rebuild trust was by giving Yazidis, an underrepresented minority in Iraq, “greater representation in leadership positions at the federal level in Baghdad.”
Nadine Maenza, president of the International Religious Freedom Secretariat told VOA that Yazidis and other religious minorities in Iraq need robust representation.
“There hasn’t been an election in Sinjar since 2003. The people that live in Sinjar should be able to choose their own leaders. They should be a part of their own governance and security. It’s in the best interest of the Iraqi government to have peace and security in Sinjar and this is how you get it,” she said.
Pari Ibrahim, who directs the Free Yezidi Foundation, added that it is “key for the prevention of future genocide against our community to make sure that those who funded the Islamic State structure are held accountable.”
The Yazidis have endured 74 genocides throughout their history.
