Tánaiste meets members of the Yazidi community

The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin T.D., today met with members of the Yazidi community of Iraq, along with Yazda, a body representing Yazidis and other minority groups attacked by Da’esh/ ISIL during their bloody ‘Caliphate’ in 2014-17. The visitors were in Ireland to attend a seminar hosted by the Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday to mark ten years since Da’esh’s horrific assault on Yazidis in their homeland of Sinjar, in northern Iraq.

The seminar included Iraqi Yazidis, including survivors of Da’esh violence, Yazda, representatives of the Government of Iraq and the Kurdish Regional Government, the European Union, and others. Issues discussed included the experiences of Yazidi survivors, the situation today of Yazidis and their hopes to return to their home and rebuild their community, and efforts now and in the future to achieve accountability for this terrible ordeal. Irish speakers addressed related post-conflict themes from the Irish Peace Process.

An important issue mentioned is the winding up this month of UNITAD, the UN Mission investigating Da’esh crimes, the preservation of its records and continuation of its work.

At the seminar Shereen Kheddo, a survivor of the atrocities, said “when telling us about previous genocidal campaigns and attacks against Yazidis our grandmothers used to say “Mala Ma khrakrin,” this is a Kurmanji sentence that literally means, “They destroyed our homes,” but I don’t think that you can fully understand it unless you hear it from an elderly women saying it with eyes full of tears and a sigh that burns her lungs.”

Meeting the Yazidi representatives, the Tánaiste commended them on their resilience under terrible assault, their determination to tell their stories and to rebuild and seek redress. The Tánaiste said: “I was honoured to meet today with members of Iraq’s Yazidi community and pleased that my Department was able to host a seminar yesterday marking the 10th anniversary of the atrocities inflicted on their people by Da’esh/ISIL. Their resilience in the face of such brutality is inspiring and I am glad to have been able to offer this platform to the Yazidi people to promote awareness of their cause.”

Note:

Beginning on 3 August 2014, Da’esh/ISIS began a campaign of mass atrocities against the Yazidi community in Sinjar, Iraq. This left 5,000 dead or missing, 6,000 women and children taken into slavery and two thirds of the Yazidi population, numbering over 400,000 displaced from Northern Iraq. Those taken into slavery were subjected to horrific violence, domestic servitude, forced conscription and rape (including forced marriage to Da’esh fighters). Many were also forcibly converted to Islam. Many of those enslaved were subsequently murdered.