Yazidis welcome death of 'driving force' behind ISIS genocide, call for greater support

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A senior Yazidi religious figure and prolific Yazidi activists have welcomed Thursday’s US-led raid targeting Islamic State (ISIS) leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, which resulted in the death of the mastermind of the horrific 2014 Yazidi genocide, increasing their calls on the international community to do more to attain justice for the hundreds of thousands of displaced victims, and the thousands of women and children who remain missing over seven years on.

Qurayshi, appointed ISIS leader as a result of a similar-style US operation against his predecessor Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Idlib in October 2019, was known to have issued directives to perpetrate atrocities against the Yazidi people, providing Islamic edicts that attempted to justify ISIS’ genocidal campaign against the Yazidi community, launched in August 2014 in the Shingal region of Iraq.

Massacring old and young members alike, conscripting young boys into their terror organisation, and forcing women and girls into horrific, frequently deadly, sexual trafficking, detailed investigations show his sick commitment to eradicating the ethno-religious group, who have faced 74 devastating genocides in their recent history.

The Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), who have conducted investigations into atrocities committed by Qurayshi since 2015, said in a statement on Thursday that they have gathered “sufficient evidence to accuse Hajji Abdullah of genocide, extermination, slavery, rape, gender-based persecution, and a host of other crimes.”

According to Nerma Jelacic, CIJA’s deputy director, not only was Qurayshi a “key architect” of the Yazidi slave trade, “he personally enslaved and raped captive women.”

Faced with US forces in the early hours of Thursday morning, the 45-year old detonated a suicide bomb. In President Joe Biden’s address following the operation in Atmeh, northwest Syria, Qurayshi was described as, “the driving force behind the genocide of the Yazidi people in northwestern Iraq in 2014.” 

“We all remember the gut-wrenching stories of mass slaughters that wiped out entire villages, thousands of women and young girls sold into slavery, raped, and used as a weapon of war,” President Biden said.

LIVE: US President Joe Biden gives a statement on the overnight operation that killed ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi in Idlib, northwest Syria. https://t.co/sBANAbpWS7

— Rudaw English (@RudawEnglish) February 3, 2022

The chairman of the Yazidi Supreme Spiritual Council and leader of the Yazidi community in Iraq and the world, Mir Hazim Tahsin Saeed, issued a statement on Friday expressing “his happiness with the killing of the leader of the ISIS terrorist organization.”

“The terrorist ISIS leader had a major and negative role in kidnapping Yazidi women and killing men,” he said, thanking the US, Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) for their efforts in fighting ISIS.

Nadia Murad, human rights activist, founder of Nadia’s Initiative, and survivor of ISIS-captivity, also welcomed the raid, commenting that it served to remind ISIS victims and survivors worldwide that they have “not been forgotten by the international community.“

In a longer statement, published later on Thursday, Murad added that, “While today’s actions remind my fellow survivors and I that our suffering has not been forgotten, there is more that must be done, including plans to support the recovery of the Yazidi community and efforts to bring other members of ISIS to justice, including in a court of law.”

“Close to a decade has passed, but the trauma and destruction has vividly remained in Yazidis’ minds and hearts,” she said. “Today, 200,000 Yazidis remain internally displaced in Iraq, while 2,800 women and children are still missing and presumed to be enslaved by ISIS forces. The international community’s apathy towards these atrocities has left the community with little hope for justice and accountability.” 

The Free Yezidi Foundation (FYF) expressed gratitude to all those engaged in pursuing ISIS terrorists in comments published on Thursday, but added that it “would have preferred al-Quarayshi captured alive to answer for his unspeakable crimes in court.” 

“Qurayshi was one of the ideological proponents and logistical leaders responsible for the Yezidi Genocide,” the statement continued. “Qurayshi and others were zealously committed to and insistent upon inflicting cruelty and horror on Yezidis. This included the mass executions of Yezidi men and older women and the abductions and enslavement of Yezidi women and children - forced to endure brutality beyond description.”

Free Yezidi Foundation statement on death of #ISIS #Daesh leader Al-Qurayshi, aka Haji Abdullah. He was one of the architects of #Yezidi #Yazidi #YazidiGenocide , and among the worst human rights violators in the world. He needed to be stopped.https://t.co/xloZoQNa2n

Thread. pic.twitter.com/2hCFrkNKOg

— FreeYezidiFoundation (@Free_Yezidi) February 3, 2022

There have been limited efforts to provide accountability for ISIS' abhorrent crimes against the Yazidis in recent years.

In November, a court in Frankfurt sentenced a former ISIS member to life imprisonment on charges of crimes against the Yazidis, a month after his wife was sentenced to ten years for aiding and abetting war crimes, including enslaving a Yazidi woman and child who died of thirst after being chained-up in the heat of Fallujah in Anbar province. 

In 2018, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported 202 documented mass graves in northern and western Iraq, accepting that many more mass burial sites are yet to be identified.

In December, the remains of 41 Yazidis killed by ISIS in 2014 were returned to their village of Kocho and laid to rest, after a year-long process overseen by the UN Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh (UNITAD) in Baghdad. This was the second group of remains to be identified and returned to surviving families; in February, 104 Yazidis were buried in the same village in Shingal.

The August 2014 genocide also destroyed vast areas and infrastructure in the Shingal region, which has prevented thousands of survivors from returning to what remains of their homes.  For those who have returned - around 150,000 - the current conditions are bleak.

Related: Yazidi mass grave exhumations: To lift then lay to rest

Two dozen Turkish airstrikes were carried out on Tuesday night in Shingal, as part of the country’s attacks on Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS), a Yazidi militia affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who’s bases were targeted in the attack. 

As ever, civilians also bore the cost. The bombardment struck near a refugee camp in Makhmour, killing and wounding a number of people, including women and children.

This footage shows the mass devastation of several Yezidi villages from last night's Turkish bombing of Sinjar #Shingal region #YazidiGenocide pic.twitter.com/1Enp58m3i3

— Zidan Ismail (@zidan_yezidi) February 2, 2022

Murad Ismael, president of the Sinjar Academy and prominent Yazidi-rights activist, said on Thursday that the “mission by US forces was an honorable act and another example of using US power for [the] good of humanity,” adding that “we need more of it.”

Earlier this week, in response to Turkish airstrikes on Shingal, Ismael expressed his frustration at the lack of support. "We shrank Yazidi demands from international protection to local protection,” he said. “Still the World doesn’t seem to be able to offer that bare minimum."

A survey conducted by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in 2019 found that only 3% of the IDP population displaced from Shingal intended to return, giving reasons including the presence of mines (42%); lack of security forces (41%); house damaged or destroyed (33%); fear of discrimination (29%); and no financial means (13%).

According to the KRG Office for Rescuing Kidnapped Yazidis, over 120,000 Yazidis have left Iraq since ISIS waged their devastating campaign on the community.

Around 200,000 Yazidis live in internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps spread across 15 IDP camps in the Kurdistan Region, such as Sharya, Khanke, Kabartu - and many more - in awful conditions.

A recent community-led fundraiser (#IraqCampsAppeal) intent on attracting donations to support IDPs in Iraq suffering from snow storms, reached $2,000 at the start of this week; a paltry drop in the ocean of what is needed but an indicator of the mounting concern for communities living in makeshift homes, and a cause that attracted further attention on Saturday after six-year-old Yazidi girl was burnt to death in the Region’s Essyan IDP camp.

Another Yazidi child at age of six died yesterday in Essyan IDP camp as their tent caught fire. The agony of our community continues with no solution on the horizon to help nearly a quarter million people to return to their homes after seven years & half since the genocide.

— Murad Ismael (@murad_ismael) January 30, 2022

On 1 March 2021, the Iraqi parliament passed the Yazidi Survivors Law, intended to provide a reparations framework for survivors of ISIS crimes, including women and girls who were subjected to sexual violence, as well as child survivors who were abducted before the age of 18. In November, Amnesty International criticised Iraq’s government for a lack of meaningful support for the Yazidi community, saying it had “largely ignored the significant recommendations made by Iraqi civil society organizations on the regulations.”

Last month, ISIS militants launched their biggest assault since the defeat of its so-called caliphate nearly three years ago in Syria, attacking al-Sina’a prison in northeast Syria (Rojava) to free fellow members and affiliates and sparking battles between the Kurdish-led forces and the terror group.

Many are asking what this attack, and Qurayshi’s death, might mean for ISIS. Another question is what more can - and should - be done to support the persecuted Yazidi community, still suffering from the chilling implications of the group’s campaign of horror.

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