No future for Yezidis in the Middle East, says Aurora Prize winner Mirza Dinnayi

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A Germany-based Yezidi activist has thanked the Aurora Initiative for awarding him its flagship award for humanitarian work last month, calling it a diplomatic recognition of the genocide which ripped apart the small community five years ago. However, Yezidis continue to face grave threat in their homeland amid Turkey’s current offensive in northeastern Syria, he warns. 

"[The prize] is a kind of symbolic, diplomatic recognition of the Yezidi genocide and will help empower the Yezidi issue and strengthen our struggle for Yezidi rights," Mirza Dinnayi told Rudaw English.

The Aurora Prize - established by the grandchildren of Armenian genocide survivors - is the largest in the humanitarian community, and was awarded to Dinnayi for his work with survivors of terrorism.

He added that the prize has given him a responsibility to “spread the language of peace to the world.”

Where he is less optimistic however, is in the future of his community in their own homeland, particularly in light of the ongoing Turkish offensive in northeast Syria.

“There is no future for the Yezidis in the Middle East” he said gravely.

Operation Peace Spring, launched last month, has displaced hundreds of thousands from the Kurdish-held enclave in Northern Syria, including members of the Yezidi ethnoreligious minority. Twenty-three Yezidi villages lie inside Turkey’s so-called safe zone, and over 50 percent of Syria’s Yezidis have left the country since civil war broke out in 2011, according to the activist.

Dinnayi, a Yezidi who has lived in Germany for several decades, has been engaged in fighting for Yezidi rights for over 20 years.  He previously served as Presidential Advisor for Minority Affairs under Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. 

Connections made within the Iraqi political scene later proved invaluable in establishing his NGO Luftbrucke Irak (Air Bridge Iraq), which transports Iraqi children to German hospitals for treatment.

The NGO was founded in 2007, after the devastating Al-Qaeda bombing of the Yezidi villages of Siba Sheikh Khidr and Til Ezer. Dinnayi spoke of his commitment to save all Iraqi children from war, regardless of religious or ethnic affiliation. Despite its small beginnings, the charity has made a big impact.

“I brought the first six children to Germany with thanks to the German Embassy...they left Iraq in wheelchairs and came back walking,” he told Rudaw.

“We are a small and quiet NGO. In the last 13 years, we have helped 150 children from different parts of Iraq.” He added that to date, the organisation has only had financial aid from one sponsor.

He then rushed to Iraq to save his people from genocide in August 2014. The Islamic State (ISIS) group was tearing their way through the Shingal region, at the time home to 400,000 members of the ethno-religious minority. Villages were wiped out as men and the elderly were summarily executed before thousands of women and children were enslaved, to be sold across ISIS territory.

While in Iraq, he was on board a helicopter which crashed upon take-off from Mount Sinjar, injuring several and killing the pilot. Dinnayi told of a harrowing brush with death.

“Forty people were on top of me, and I saw death with my own eyes. I couldn’t breathe.”

“Psychology says there are five stages of death, and I didn’t believe it. But then I saw them: I saw my life play in front of my eyes.”

Returning to Germany alive but injured, the aid worker then spent a week in hospital before giving the first speech on the plight of his people at the inaugural session of the UN’s Human Rights Council on Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State) in Geneva. He resisted appeals from family members and took to the podium still in his wheelchair, before returning to meet the first survivors of ISIS captivity in Fallujah.

“As a man, I was completely shocked and ashamed to hear the stories of the innocent girls,” he said.

The trauma faced by his community is immense, and still poses a challenge to NGOs working with survivors of the genocide, who struggle with bereavement, trauma and the continued uncertainty of their own lives in refugee camps and those of family members still held by ISIS. Many families with relatives in ISIS captivity spiral into serious debt in attempts to reunite with their loved ones.

“I can’t solve the plight of the whole community, but I thought I could do something for that one group,” he said, referring to the more than 3,000 Yezidi women and children who have been freed from ISIS captivity.

Following his speech in Geneva, Dinnayi contacted dozens of policy makers in Germany, looking for a safe refuge for the women escaping the terror group.

The enslavement of more than 7,000 women and children led the Yezidi religious leadership to take an unprecedented decision in welcoming survivors back into the endogamous, deeply conservative community - a decision in which Dinnayi was involved. However, returning to a life of tents, with no psychosocial services available, was the unfortunate reality of those who had been freed.

“The best way to help was for them to leave Iraq, for many reasons. Most of them had lost their children, and returned from captivity to live in tents,” Dinnayi explained.

The trauma of supporting survivors of ISIS enslavement took its toll on the man tasked with bringing over 1,000 women and children to safety, following the first round of interviews which would see them start a new life in Germany.

The programme was the first of its kind in the country, and has led to the establishment of similar initiatives for survivors in Canada, Australia and France. With limited places, all interested survivors had to be interviewed by Dinnayi - a grueling process for both parties.

Two hundred interviews passed before he was able to take a break.

“The first set of interviews left me completely traumatised.  I couldn’t sleep at night; I was crying all the time and didn’t know what to do. I was completely finished,” he said.

However, the prospect of leaving the survivors in Iraq was a scarier thought for the activist.  He now accredits overcoming his trauma to helping others- a phenomenon he has witnessed in female survivors, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad and Sakharov Prize recipients Fareeda Abbas and Lamiya Haji Bashar.

“I convinced myself that if I left the project, it would fall apart and I would never forgive myself for leaving those children and that project that could save their lives.”

“I treated myself by helping these people, by stopping the consequences of the genocide. I saw the same in the girls- Nadiya, Lamiya, Fareeda - the five, six girls who became excellent voices for other victims. They are speaking up and advocating for female rights, they feel much stronger and they overcome their trauma. I felt the same,” he added.