“In the wake of recent events, there is no way to go there and there is no local administration there to deal with and to represent [Nineveh] province,” said Judge Ayman Mostafa, head of the Kurdistan Region’s committee to investigate ISIS crimes.
His investigating teams have not visited the region since October when Iraqi and Hashd al-Shaabi forces took control of the areas that are officially disputed under the constitution.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) established the Commission for Investigation and Gathering Evidence, headed by Mostafa, to document the Yezidi genocide committed by ISIS.
The Commission has some 2,000 cases filed by Yezidi victims and families of victims.
Officials say the Iraqi government is not helping in this regard.
“The Iraqi government should help create an international court to try those charged with committing the genocide,” Mohammed Hawdiyani, member of the Commission, told Rudaw.
“We have already finished all the documenting,” he added.
Nearly half of the Yezidis abducted from Shingal by ISIS in August 2014 and its surrounding areas are still being held captive or their fates remain unknown, according to the latest data released by the KRG’s ministry of religious affairs.
From August 3, 2014 until December 1, 2017, of 6,417 Yezidis kidnapped by ISIS, only 3,207 of them have been rescued or have escaped, Khairi Bozani, General Manager of Yezidis Affairs in the KRG’s Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs told Rudaw, explaining that 3,210 are still under the group’s captivity.
The KRG has record of 47 mass graves.
Samir Shakir’s father and brothers were killed by ISIS and others of his family were seized by the group. He believes that, after Hashd al-Shaabi entered Shingal in mid-October, efforts to recognize the massacre of Yezidis at the hands of ISIS militants have been sidelined.
Human Rights Watch recently published a report criticizing Iraqi and KRG trials of ISIS militants, saying that current prosecution efforts are solely using counter-terrorism laws and convicting individuals on the basis of membership in ISIS only, and not commission of specific crimes.
The rights monitor also said that victims are being left out of the judicial process, especially Yezidis.
Human Rights Watch reported it was not aware of a “single trial by the KRG or by the government of Iraq of an ISIS suspect for specific crimes committed against a Yezidi individual.”
Not only is court-based justice slow in coming for the Yezidi community, it is also facing obstacles to rebuilding their communities and returning the thousands who are still living in camps.
Murad Ismael, executive director of Yezidi advocacy group Yazda, recently visited Shingal where he “found the situation there extremely difficult.”
He said on Twitter that health care and education services and were lacking and residents had no heating oil or food aid.
Like Judge Mostafa, he said the situation is complicated by the lack of official administration in the area, saying that a “newly appointed local administration [is] not official and not functional.”
He also said roads to the region remain blocked.
Nadia Murad, a former ISIS captive and the UN’s Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking, has become a voice for Yezidi victims around the world.
On Saturday, marked by the United Nations as Genocide Victims Day, she said Yezidis who have survived the genocide “are not able to find the basic services they need” in their home areas.
