SHINGAL, Iraq — The suicide rate among Yezidi youth is on the rise, having increased by ten percent compared to the previous year, according to Shingal’s court. This comes officials warns of Iraq seeing record levels of suicide in 2020. Twenty-five people mostly below the age of 20 have committed suicide this year, according to data Rudaw obtained from the court, a figure up from 2019's 18 cases. Of the 25 cases, 15 are women. Alyas Khalil, 19, from the town of Sinune, is the last person registered by the Shingal court to have taken his life. Family members say they did not see it coming. “Alyas had willingly got married six months ago. We had no problems or shortages. He was our family's breadwinner," Alyas’s mother, Naam Eido, recounted the tragedy as she burst into tears. The newlywed’s family says this is the second time they have experienced this kind of tragedy. In 2015, their 21-year-old daughter ended her life. Last month, Iraq’s human rights commission reported 298 suicides in Iraq between January 1 and August 30, 2020, according to al-Sharqiya news. Many Yezidis suffered psychological trauma when the Islamic State (ISIS) group attacked their Shingal heartland in 2014. ISIS kidnapped more than 6,000 people and killed more than 1,200. More than 360,000 of the once 500,000-strong Yezidi community in Iraq fled their hometowns to camps for the displaced. Harmful mental health repercussions have proven rife, with humanitarian organizations including Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) appealing for assistance in dealing with "a severe mental health crisis, which includes high numbers of suicides and suicide attempts" in and around Shingal. In a recent study conducted by the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), an international NGO offering psychotherapy to displaced people, 120 of 635 IDPs aged 15-25 were found to suffer from mental health problems. "I can’t say a hundred percent of the suicide cases are caused by mental illness. I would say 90 percent of the cases are due to mental illness. When a social problem comes up and is not resolved, it will develop and lead to a psychological problem until they commit suicide.," JRS psychologist Firas Sleman told Rudaw. Khalil Rasho, a lawyer from the Shingal Court, attributes the increased rate of suicide among Yezidis under 20 to early marriage and the negative aspects of social media. Many believe rates are higher than the reported figures, with social stigma dissuading people from lodging the deaths as suicides. “The number of the cases are too much, there are lots of suicide attempts in the camps which camp management doesn't record due to the social convention that it brings shame upon the family," Viyan Ahmed, who is the Duhok province director of The Lotus Flower, an international NGO and a non-profit supporting women and girls impacted by conflict and displacement, had previously told Rudaw. “That’s why they never reveal the attempts - even if a woman commits suicide, they will say she died of natural causes.” The organization has been working in Yezidi IDP camps in Duhok since 2014. The near exclusive focus on women who were subjected to sexual slavery and abuse at the hands of ISIS for programs of resettlement abroad or NGO support in Iraq has left other displaced Yezidi women neglected, Ahmed added. “Those women were captured by ISIS group, and later released, live in a better condition. They are taken care either by their families or the NGOs. Some are given asylum in Canada or in the European countries, that’s why they live in better conditions than those who faced misery and difficulties during their displacement to the mountainous areas of Shingal. So cases [of suicide] of these women are growing higher than of those who were released from ISIS hands," she said. Translation by Zhelwan Z. Wali
