With red flowers, Yezidis prepare to welcome the New Year
The Yezidi New Year takes place at “the beginning of spring,” explained religious leader Baba Chawesh. “Yezidis believe that life began on a Wednesday.”
On Chwarshama Sur – Red Wednesday – hundreds of Yezidis will don their traditional clothes and visit the holy temple in Lalish in Duhok to mark the day Tawuse Melek, the Peacock Angel who is God's representative on earth, descended on the holy site to bless the earth with fertility and renewal.
Preparations include boiling and coloring eggs. “This is part of our New Year where we boil the eggs… It’s interesting as it’s now spring. It’s a celebration, so we enjoy it. Hopefully these [traditions] will be preserved,” Khazal Sulaiman, a Yezidi man, told Rudaw.
Women prepare the eggs while men throw the shells into their fields to bring good luck.
“Our existence depends on this crop,” said farmer Sheikh Ismail Mirzo. “We throw the egg shells into these fields so God will have mercy on us and bring good luck.”
Young people pick red flowers to wear on their clothes and adorn the gates of their homes.
At Lalish, 366 flames will be lit – one for each day in the Yezidi calendar.
The religious minority suffered genocide under the Islamic State (ISIS) when militants took control of Shingal in 2014, killing hundreds of Yezidi men and enslaving thousands of women and children.
Forced from their homes, spread across the world as refugees, and mourning their missing loved ones, Yezidis did not celebrate their New Year for several years. Last year they held their first celebration, under the shadow of the genocide.
Iraq, with the assistance of the United Nations, has begun exhuming mass graves believed to hold the remains of hundreds of Yezidis executed by ISIS. Dozens of Yezidi women and children have been found in northern Syria after the military defeat of the group and are expected to be reunited with their families soon. But the fate of 2,992 Yezidis are still unknown, according to the most recent figures from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s office of Yezidi affairs.
“I reiterate that I will support the demands of our Yezidi sisters and brothers as much as I can, and everyone shall help them to determine their fate and future,” said Masoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in a statement on Chwarshama Sur.
It is the obligation of all parties to help Yezidis heal and return to a "normal life," said KRG deputy PM Qubad Talabani tweeted late Tuesday night.
“I warmly congratulate the Yezidis on occasion of their religious new year, Chwarshama Sur. Following the defeat of ISIS, the time has now come for Yazidis to return to their normal life. It is the duty of all parties to help them in different ways heal their profound wounds,” he wrote.
Iraq’s Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi also issued a statement of congratulations.
We wish the Yezidi people a “blessed and lasting holiday under a unified and secure Iraq that protects everyone without exception,” he stated, adding that the parliament leadership is committed to adopting the Yezidi Survivors Bill, a piece of legislation recently introduced to provide assistance to the victims of ISIS.
Reporting by Ayub Nasri, Update 9:15 a.m., April 17