Yazidis Urge U.N. to Deem Violence by ISIS to be Treated as Genocide

By Gary Nguyen --
17 May 2016 --

Yazidi Christians call for international recognition of acts against Yazidis be declared genocide.

The Yazidis are a Kurdish religious community recognized by the United Nations as a distinct ethnic group. The majority of the Yazidi population lives in Iraq. They are an independent community with their own unique culture.

Yazidis Urge U.N. to Deem Violence by ISIS to be Treated as Genocide[/tweetthis]

Since August 2014, ISIS has been targeting the Yazidis in their campaign to purify Iraq and neighboring countries of non-Islamic influences. They have been forcing them to convert to their version of Islam. Captured Yazidi women are treated as sex slaves. Women that convert to Islam are sold as brides. Women that refuse, are raped, tortured, raped, and murdered. Babies born in their prison are taken to unknown locations. According to the U.N., about 7,000 of Yazidi girls and women, belonging to faith like Zoroastrianism, Islam, and Christianity, were enslaved by the ISIS in 2014. They are still holding about 3,500 people.

The atrocities conducted by the ISIS against the Yazidis are right there in the open, it is not something that is being kept under the wraps, however, expect for the United States of America, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the European Parliament, no other countries have officially accepted it as a genocide. The Yazidi campaigners are calling to the whole world to declare the acts of ISIS against the Yazidi community as genocide so that the international community could take action against the militant group. The Yazidi campaigners are asking the world leaders for protection, and for justice.

Once the world leaders all recognize the acts committed by ISIS against Yazidis, Christians, and other religious minorities as genocide, an internationally recognized legal term that is necessary to call for further steps against the perpetrators of genocide, the U.N. Security Council would be able to act, and send assistance to persecuted people.

Evidence of genocide against the militant group is mounting. Recently, a U.N. envoy discovered more than 50 mass graves in an area once held by ISIS. In northern Iraq mass graves found near Mount Sinjarm, where according to the Kurdish Peshmerga, the ISIS killed more than 50 Yazidis.

Last week, in a briefing submitted to the Security Council, Jan Kubis, the U.N. Secretary-General's Special Representative and Head of the U.N.'s Assistance Mission for Iraq, strongly condemned the continued killings, torture, kidnapping, and rape of Iraqis by ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). He emphasized the fact that these atrocities constitute for crimes against humanity.

Dancing w/ Yazidi refugees in Lnk b/c of genocide Isis is perpetrating on their people in N Iraq. Beautiful. #mylnk pic.twitter.com/T9IiQrwacC
— Ben Davy (@salud12) May 16, 2016

According to Nasreen, a Yazidi girl who was captured by the ISIS, and then later escaped from their clutches, says that the Islamic State destroyed her and her family's lives and future. According to her, life was like hell while living in their capture.

The party of Mr Reinfeldt doesn't admit genocide. But we, the people, do. So yazidi, kurds & christians; God bless! pic.twitter.com/X5Xpaanw5p
— Mikael Sollenberg (@MikaelSoll) May 17, 2016