DOHUK, Kurdistan Region-- Yezidi refugees in Dohuk have given birth to more than 15,000 children since they escaped ISIS assault on their communities in August 2014, official medical records show from Dohuk province where the bulk of Yezidi refugees have taken shelter.
Health ministry officials in the province told Rudaw the majority of the newborns had been delivered in hospitals in Dohuk but some were given birth to in tents and refugees camps.
"We have registered 21,243 newborns by the refugee families of whom over 15,000 have Yezidi parents," said Hamza Raziki from the provincial health office.
Nearly 650,000 displaced people from Iraq have taken refuge in Dohuk in addition to around 150,000 refugees from neighbouring Syria.
Health ministry officials in the province told Rudaw the majority of the newborns had been delivered in hospitals in Dohuk but some were given birth to in tents and refugees camps.
"We have registered 21,243 newborns by the refugee families of whom over 15,000 have Yezidi parents," said Hamza Raziki from the provincial health office.
Nearly 650,000 displaced people from Iraq have taken refuge in Dohuk in addition to around 150,000 refugees from neighbouring Syria.
The province is currently preparing to receive another wave of refugees from Mosul after the looming operation to retake the ISIS-held city.
The new refugees will be placed in five new camps outside the city near Nineveh province but will be administrated by Dohuk provincial authorities, Kurdish officials have said.
"Six people from our extended family were captured by the ISIS, three are still missing, but since then four children have been born within our family," said Maria, 40, a Yezidi mother of six. "I feel so happy for my youngest child who was born here in the camp," she said. "It feels as if I've become a mother for the first time," she added.
Over 2700 children have lost one or both parents while 600 children and the elderly have died when escaping to the Mount Shingal after the initial attack on Shingal and the surrounding Yezidi villages on August 3, 2014.
Official government reports say nearly 6000 Yezidi men, women and children were abducted in the first days of ISIS attack on Shingal.
Many of the female prisoners were transferred to Syria where they were treated as war trophies, while the majority of the men were executed, eyewitnesses have told Human Rights’ Watch.
In July a special UN commission established that the violations committed by the ISIS militants against the Yezidi minority in Iraq constitute genocide.
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