Seven years on, Kocho remembers ISIS massacre

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region –– Seven years after the Islamic State (ISIS) massacre in the Yazidi village of Kocho, survivors are gathering in the village to remember the victims. 

Located 18 kilometres southwest of Shingal, the village was encircled for nearly two weeks after ISIS militants captured the rest of the district on 3 August, 2014. 

On August 15, the villagers were gathered at a local school before being separated, with almost all of Kocho’s men shot, boys forced to become child soldiers, and women and girls sold into sexual slavery. Among them was Nadia Murad, now a Nobel Peace Laureate and prominent advocate for the Yazidi community.

“Seven years have passed since the catastrophe of Kocho. The village has been destroyed and exterminated. More than 1,250 people were killed and enslaved,” said village chief Naif Jaso told Rudaw. 

There is no official commemoration event this year due to COVID-19, he said, but Yazidis travelled from IDP camps in Duhok to remember the dead and missing.

The ISIS attack on the Yazidis has been widely recognized as genocide. In the first days of the genocide, 1,293 people were killed and 6,417 people were abducted. Today, 2,760 people are still missing, according to statistics from the NGO Joint Help for Kurdistan. 

Shame Dero lost five of her ten children to the extremists. She lives in Chamishko camp in Duhok. 

Dero says 33 members of her family were captured by the militants. Of them, only 18 members survived. Five of her sons are dead. 

“We’re the mothers and sisters of the martyrs. I have lost 13 men in my family. They all have been killed. 33 members of my family were captured. We freed some of them, and others are still in the hands of the infidels,” Dero said on Sunday.

“I urge the Iraqi and the Kurdistan Regional Government to help us. It has been seven years since that dark day… We hope God will help us. Nothing has been done for us,” she added.

The remains of 104 Kocho victims were buried in February after being excavated from a mass grave. According to Jaso, there are 14 mass graves in Kocho, with some still to be excavated. 

“Four days ago we had a meeting about uncovering the mass graves. The Iraqi and international teams will investigate another mass grave in September. I asked the UN to help the teams to uncover the mass graves on Mount Shingal,” he said.

A project is underway to memorialize the massacre and turn what remains of Kocho into a museum, Nadia’s Initiative announced in March. New housing will also be built for villagers.

Reporting from Kocho by Tahsin Qasim