ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Yazidis across Iraq and further afield are renewing calls for the return of their missing relatives, almost seven years after they were kidnapped by the Islamic State (ISIS).
On Thursday, members of the Yazidi Youth Network held a demonstration calling for the return of their loved ones in Sinune, a town north of Mount Sinjar which sheltered hundreds of thousands of Yazidis as ISIS swept through Shingal in summer 2014, killing and taking captive thousands of Yazidis.
“For Yazidis, ISIS is still strong and our genocide continues, since we are displaced and our women and children are missing,” network president Samia Qassim told Rudaw English on Wednesday night. According to Qassim, rallies were also planned elsewhere in Iraq, including in Baghdad.
According to figures from the Kurdistan Regional Government Office for Kidnapped Yazidis, 6,417 Yazidis were kidnapped by ISIS in August 2014. Almost 3,000 remain missing.
Although many were either rescued or escaped from captivity, the trickle of returnees has slowed. Women and children have been found as far away as Ankara and Istanbul in Turkey. On Monday, the Free Yezidi Foundation said the “most likely places” to look for survivors are in Turkey and Syria.
“We want an inclusive campaign in Iraq and abroad to look for our missing people. The government should act with commitment and support in searching for them,” Qassim added. “We know many Yazidis are in Iraq and Syria.”
The call for action has also spread on social media.
Adar Murad, a student in the Kurdistan Region, says efforts to bring home the missing are particularly important following the return of almost 100 Iraqi families from al-Hol camp in northeast Syria (Rojava), where a number of Yazidi captives have previously been found.
“We need to know the fate of those kidnapped. The Yazidi community is angry, because the Iraqi government doesn’t respect our genocide and instead of searching and bringing back the kidnapped, it brings back ISIS families who admit they are still ISIS," she told Rudaw English.
“It is a government that has insulted us and our feelings, and it proves that we are not considered as Iraqi citizens.”
On Wednesday, Rudaw interviewed a woman returning to Iraq from al-Hol, who admitted her husband enslaved a Yazidi woman.
“I am the wife of a man who took a Yazidi infidel woman,” said the woman, who was only identified as Umm Ahmed. “I really love the Islamic State.”
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