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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Lalish Temple to celebrate the Jama feast slammed Turkey for attacks on northeast Syria (Rojava) on Sunday.
More than a hundred Yazidis from various parts of northern Syria have visited the Yazidi holy temple of Lalish in Duhok province to mark the week-long Jama feast, celebrated every year in early October with religious rituals and ceremonies.
"As soon as I set off, I received a phone call telling me that our village, Til Khatun, had come under bombings," said Gulnaz Adnan, 60, who left her home in the area of Tirbespi, Hasaka province to mark the Jama feast in Lalish. "Now, my family is without water and electricity."
Yazidis from across the globe head towards the holy Lalish Temple to participate in religious rituals and ceremonies during Jama, a holiday marked by the religious minority every year in early October. The timing of the festival coincides with the arrival of autumn.
Aziz Hammo, his daughter, and son-in-law are also among the 100 people who have come from Syria to Lalish for the Yazidi celebration. Despite being originally from Qastal Jindo village in the Afrin countryside, they were forced to leave in 2018 when the Turkish army and its Syrian proxies took control of the area. The family has traveled to Lalish from Aleppo, where they currently live.
"I am from Qastal Jindo village. More than 450 families used to live in it. Now, only five to six families remain there. Our houses and properties are invaded by the militants.”
Turkey has relentlessly bombarded Kurdish sites in northeast Syria since Thursday, striking military targets and civilian infrastructure, including power stations, oil fields, and other basic services in Rojava. This follows a suicide attack against Turkey’s interior ministry in Ankara last week, which the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) later claimed responsibility for.
Mazloum Abdi, the general commander of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has denied any connection between Rojava and the Ankara attack. The “perpetrators have not passed through our region as Turkish officials claim, and we are not a party to Turkey’s internal conflict nor do we encourage escalation,” he said in a Wednesday statement on X.
The Islamic State (ISIS) overran the Yazidi heartland of Shingal in August 2014 and committed atrocities including genocide against the group. More than 6,000 Yazidis were abducted and around 2,700 remain missing.
Shingal was liberated in 2015 and ISIS was declared territorially defeated in Iraq two years later.
More than a hundred Yazidis from various parts of northern Syria have visited the Yazidi holy temple of Lalish in Duhok province to mark the week-long Jama feast, celebrated every year in early October with religious rituals and ceremonies.
"As soon as I set off, I received a phone call telling me that our village, Til Khatun, had come under bombings," said Gulnaz Adnan, 60, who left her home in the area of Tirbespi, Hasaka province to mark the Jama feast in Lalish. "Now, my family is without water and electricity."
Yazidis from across the globe head towards the holy Lalish Temple to participate in religious rituals and ceremonies during Jama, a holiday marked by the religious minority every year in early October. The timing of the festival coincides with the arrival of autumn.
Aziz Hammo, his daughter, and son-in-law are also among the 100 people who have come from Syria to Lalish for the Yazidi celebration. Despite being originally from Qastal Jindo village in the Afrin countryside, they were forced to leave in 2018 when the Turkish army and its Syrian proxies took control of the area. The family has traveled to Lalish from Aleppo, where they currently live.
"I am from Qastal Jindo village. More than 450 families used to live in it. Now, only five to six families remain there. Our houses and properties are invaded by the militants.”
Turkey has relentlessly bombarded Kurdish sites in northeast Syria since Thursday, striking military targets and civilian infrastructure, including power stations, oil fields, and other basic services in Rojava. This follows a suicide attack against Turkey’s interior ministry in Ankara last week, which the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) later claimed responsibility for.
Mazloum Abdi, the general commander of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has denied any connection between Rojava and the Ankara attack. The “perpetrators have not passed through our region as Turkish officials claim, and we are not a party to Turkey’s internal conflict nor do we encourage escalation,” he said in a Wednesday statement on X.
The Islamic State (ISIS) overran the Yazidi heartland of Shingal in August 2014 and committed atrocities including genocide against the group. More than 6,000 Yazidis were abducted and around 2,700 remain missing.
Shingal was liberated in 2015 and ISIS was declared territorially defeated in Iraq two years later.
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