Kurdistan
The meeting between Hungarian President Katalin Novak and Yazidi women who survived ISIS in Erbil on December 10, 2022. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Hungarian President Katalin Novak met on Saturday with Yazidi survivors of the genocide inflicted upon the ethnoreligious community by the Islamic State (ISIS) group during her visit to the Kurdistan Region.
Novak met with 15 Yazidi women who survived enslavement and genocide by ISIS. The Hungarian president expressed her support for their plight and offered assistance during the meeting in the Kurdistan Region’s capital of Erbil.
The meeting was mainly focused on “the situation and the sufferings of the Yazidi community,” one survivor told Rudaw’s Halabja Saadun following the meeting while urging the local and international community to continue to assist them.
“The ones who have been freed suffer a lot in the [IDP] camps and we have not been granted our rights yet,” she said, adding that their plight has persisted for “eight years in the camps.”
Novak was received by Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani upon her arrival in Erbil on Friday as part of a two-day visit to the Kurdistan Region. She visited Christian towns in the Nineveh province and later held a meeting with Barzani.
Barzani and Novak held a meeting in Erbil later on Friday. Both leaders talked about Hungary’s relations with Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, Erbil-Baghdad relations, the war with ISIS as well as the issue of displacement.
Hussein Qaidi, the head of the Rescuing Kidnapped Yazidis office, which is affiliated to the Kurdistan Region Presidency, commended Novak’s visit during an interview with Saadun.
“The visit of a European president of a country in the European Union is very good for the Kurdistan Region and it placed great emphasis on the topic of coexistence,” Qaidi said.
According to statistics provided by Qaidi, 6,417 Yazidis were kidnapped as ISIS overran their heartland of Shingal in 2014. Of that number, 3,562 have been rescued, despite him lamenting the lack of assistance provided to his office by the international community.
Eight years after the tyrannical occupation of Shingal by ISIS, more than 2 thousand Yazidis are still held captives by the militant group and over 300,000 live in the Kurdistan Region, many of whom linger in camps and live well below the poverty line, according to statistics from Rescue Kidnapped Yazidis office sent to Rudaw English in August by Khayri Bozani, the former head of Yazidi affairs at the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) endowment ministry.
ISIS overran the Yazidi heartland of Shingal in August 2014, committing genocide against the ethnoreligious group. Thousands of people were killed during their brutal reign while thousands of others fled to the Kurdistan Region and northeast Syria (Rojava).
Although Shingal was liberated in 2015, much of the area still lies in ruins. Other parts of the district have scarce facilities, including hospitals and schools.
The presence of armed groups vying for control of the strategic area has also been cited as a factor preventing Yazidis from returning home to Shingal.
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