ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi paid a rare visit to Shingal district on Monday, visiting the mass graves of Yazidis who were murdered by the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014. He said they are working on building a museum for the victims.
“We will work on building a museum to commemorate the martyrs of this place, including children, women, and the valiant fighters who defeated terrorism on behalf of the goodwill in the whole world,” Kadhimi said during the visit, according to a statement from his office.
On August 15, the residents of Kocho village were gathered at a local school before being separated, with almost all of the village’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.
The ISIS attack on the Yazidis has been widely recognized as genocide. In the first days of the genocide in early August, 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.
“The land of Sinjar [Shingal] will remain an immortal shrine in the conscience of the Iraqis, a luminous sign in the record of their patriotism, and a witness to the steadfastness of our Yazidi people and their adherence to their land,” added Kadhimi on Monday.
He also said that the Shingal Agreement signed between Erbil and Baghdad will be implemented and pave the way for the reconstruction in the district as well as “restore familiarity, love and coexistence to it as it was throughout the ages.”
The Shingal Agreement, announced in October last year, outlines a plan for governance and security of the disputed area, but has largely not been implemented.
Nadia’s Initiative said in March that a project was underway to memorialize the massacre and turn Nadia Murad’s village, Kocho, into a museum. It is not clear if this is the same project Kadhimi mentioned or a separate one.
