Official: 3,000 Yezidis still missing or held by ISIS
DOHUK, Kurdistan Region—Nearly 3,000 Kurdish Yezidis are still missing despite a year’s worth of efforts to secure the release of those abducted by the Islamic State, or ISIS, according to data provided by regional authorities Monday.
The new information came as ceremonies were held Monday throughout Kurdistan region to commemorate the first anniversary of the attacks on Yezidis in Shingal city, bordering Syria to east.
Mount Sinjar, or Shingal in Kurdish, came under international attention where thousands of fleeing Yezidis were trapped for weeks after trying to escape ISIS offensive in Shingal.
Nouri Shingali, head of the Office of Yezidi Affairs, told Rudaw his office has knowledge of at least 2,500 Yezidis who are still alive but in ISIS captivity either in Syria or in Iraq.
The Office of Yezidi Affairs is the Kurdistan Regional Gvernment’s operation center set up to follow up on Yezidi refugees and their missing relatives.
“We have recorded every missing Yezidi since August last year when they were attacked,” said Shingali.
“Since last year, 1,850 Yezidis have been released of whom 847 are women and 412 are elderly.”
Shingali said his office has regularly paid ransoms to local intermediaries in Syria and Iraq for the return of Yezidi captives. He said the majority of those freed were released after ransoms were paid, apart from the elderly who were released by ISIS without any payoffs.
Authorities fear that at least 1,000 Yezidis, mostly men, were executed by the militants in the early days of the attacks as the city of Shingal fell to ISIS.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that around 40,000 Yezidis have left Iraq in the past year for a life in Europe, where the second largest Yezidi community resides in Germany.
In Sharia camp in Dohuk, Rudaw spoke to Xali Murad, an elderly Yezidi mother of five who said was released due to her age after nine months in ISIS captivity.
“They separated the old women and men from the rest of the people and then took us to Kirkuk where we were freed,” said Murad, who is now waiting to be reunited with her children and grandchildren who are still in captivity.
Yezidis in Kurdistan region announced last week they would not celebrate their traditional summer festivities due to the anniverary of the attacks and those who remain captives.
“We were instructed by our Mir [religious leader] to put on hold all festivities this year until our loved ones return,” said Baba Sheihk, a senior member of the Yezidi Council in Iraqi Kurdistan.
In a ceremony held Monday in Dohuk in honor of the Shingal victim, Kurdish President Massoud Barzani called on Yezidis not to abandon what he called “their ancestral lands” and vowed to rebuild Shingal city, which has been ravaged by bombings and street clashes in the past year.
“I ask the Kurdistan Regional Government to put Shingal on its top priority for reconstruction and compensation,” Barzani told a gathering in Dohuk, adding that efforts will be made to turn Shingal into its own province.