Yezidi leaders meet Ambassador Tueller, urge for US support

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – In his first visit to the Kurdistan Region as US Ambassador to Iraq, Matthew Tueller met with prominent Yezidi leaders in Erbil on Sunday, who called on the US to support them in their struggle to achieve their rights. 

“We asked that Yezidis in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq be treated equally to other ethnic groups and for the treatment to be in line with the Iraqi constitution,” Haider Shasho, the head of the Yezidi Democratic Party, told Rudaw English. 

Iraq’s Yezidi community is still reeling after Islamic State (ISIS) militants targeted Shingal in August 2014, slaughtering thousands of Yezidi men and burying them in mass graves. Women and children were abducted and sold into slavery – many facing years of repeated sexual violence.

The majority of Yezidis displaced by the onslaught have yet to return home, instead residing in IDP camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Kurdish-held areas in northern Syria. Many refuse to return unless safety and basic services are provided. 

Received by Tueller and US Consul General to Erbil Steven Fagin, the delegation asked for Shingal, the heartland of the minority group, to be cleared of armed groups operating in the area.

“In the meeting, we asked for the town of Shingal and its surrounding villages to be cleared of the forces of Kurdistan Workers Party [PKK] and Hashd al-Shaabi [Popular Mobilisation Forces],” said Shasho. 

The Yezidi leader said they proposed that they be protected in Shingal by Peshmerga and federal police, also suggesting that a force formed from Yazidis themselves could “contribute to the protection of local populations.” 

“We demanded that the people of these places be protected by Peshmerga and federal police forces through coordination between these two forces,” Shasho said.

“In our meeting with the US ambassador and consul, we also asked for Yezidis who have been affected by the war on the ISIS to be compensated,” he added.

President Trump’s administration has previously called for Iraqi government urgency in offering Yezidis and other religious minorities the security they need to return and thrive, as well as funding to aid reconstruction in Shingal and the wider Nineveh province.

Vian Dakhil, a Yezidi Member of the Council of Representatives of Iraq, was also in attendance. 

She discussed “the subject of missing persons and the rights of survivors, transitional justice, compensation for those affected, reconstruction of Yezidi areas and reparations” with Tueller, she said in a Facebook post on Sunday. 

Of the 6,417 Yezidis kidnapped by ISIS, the fate of 2,992 remains unclear, according to the Yezidi Affairs Office in the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Ministry of Religious Affairs and Endowment. 

Thousands more are thought to lie undiscovered in mass graves around Shingal and other liberated areas. The process of exhuming mass graves in and around Shingal began in March. 

“Mr. Ambassador has provided his full solidarity with the demands of Yezidis and full support for their rights,” Dakhil added.