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#Canada Who Are the Yazidis, the Ancient, Persecuted
Religious Minority Struggling to Survive in Iraq?
Who Are the Yazidis, the Ancient, Persecuted
Religious Minority Struggling to Survive in Iraq?
The U.S. contemplates sending military aircraft and
possible ground troops to rescue the Yazidis, as more American military
advisers arrive in Iraq to help plan an evacuation of the displaced people.
Displaced Iraqi Yazidis demand more aid at the Bajid Kandala camp in Kurdistan on August 13, 2014.
PHOTOGRAPH BY AHMAD AL-RUBAYE, AFP/GETTY
For their beliefs, they have been the target of hatred for centuries. Considered heretical devil worshippers by many Muslims—including the advancing militants overrunning Iraq—the Yazidis have faced the possibility of genocide many times over. Now, with the capture of Sinjar and northward thrust of extremists calling themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS), Iraq's estimated 500,000 Yazidis fear the end of their people and their religion. In less than two weeks, nearly all the Yazidis of Sinjar have fled north, seeking refuge in Kurdish territory, while thousands remained trapped in the rugged Sinjar mountains, awaiting rescue. "Sinjar is (hopefully not was) home to the oldest, biggest, and most compact Yazidi community," says Khanna Omarkhali, a Yazidi scholar at the University of Göttingen. "Extermination, emigration, and settlement of this community will bring tragic transformations to the Yazidi religion," she adds.
The Yazidis have inhabited the mountains of northwestern Iraq for centuries, and the region is home to their holy places, shrines, and ancestral villages. Outside of Sinjar, the Yazidis are concentrated in areas north of Mosul, and in the Kurdish-controlled province of Dohuk. For Yazidis, the land holds deep religious significance; adherents from all over the world—remnant communities exist in Turkey, Germany, and elsewhere—make pilgrimages to the holy Iraqi city of Lalesh. The city is now less than 40 miles from the Islamic State front lines.
#Canada Who Are the Yazidis, the Ancient, Persecuted
Religious Minority Struggling to Survive in Iraq?
Who Are the Yazidis, the Ancient, Persecuted
Religious Minority Struggling to Survive in Iraq?
The U.S. contemplates sending military aircraft and
possible ground troops to rescue the Yazidis, as more American military
advisers arrive in Iraq to help plan an evacuation of the displaced people.
As the Islamic State continues to swallow up more Yazidi territory, the Yazidis are being forced to convert, face execution, or flee. "Our entire religion is being wiped off the face of the earth," warned Yazidi leader Vian Dakhil.
While the advance of the militants constitutes a grave threat to Yazidis, persecution has been a painful historical constant for the small religious community almost since its formation. "This dilemma to convert or die is not new," says Christine Allison, an expert on Yazidism at Exeter University.
A MISUNDERSTOOD RELIGION
The Yazidi religion is often misunderstood, as it does not fit neatly into Iraq's sectarian mosaic. Most Yazidis are Kurdish speakers, and while the majority consider themselves ethnically Kurdish, Yazidis are religiously distinct from Iraq's predominantly Sunni Kurdish population. Yazidism is an ancient faith, with a rich oral tradition that integrates some Islamic beliefs with elements of Zoroastrianism, the ancient Persian religion, and Mithraism, a mystery religion originating in the Eastern Mediterranean.
This combining of various belief systems, known religiously as syncretism, was what part of what branded them as heretics among Muslims. While some Yazidi practices resemble those of Islam—refraining from eating pork, for example—many Yazidi practices appear to be unique in the region. Yazidi society is organized into a rigid religious caste system, and many Yazidis believe that the soul is reincarnated after death. While its exact origins are a matter of dispute, some scholars believe that Yazidism was formed when the Sufi leader Adi ibn Musafir settled in Kurdistan in the 12th century and founded a community that mixed elements of Islam with local pre-Islamic beliefs.
Yazidis began to face accusations of devil worship from Muslims beginning in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. While the Yazidis believe in one god, a central figure in their faith is Tawusî Melek, an angel who defies God and serves as an intermediary between man and the divine. To Muslims, the Yazidi account of Tawusî Melek often sounds like the Quranic rendering of Shaytan—the devil—even though Tawusî Melek is a force for good in the Yazidi religion.
"To this day, many Muslims consider them to be devil worshipers," says Thomas Schmidinger, an expert on Kurdish politics the University of Vienna. "So in the face of religious persecution, Yazidis have concentrated in strongholds located in remote mountain regions," he adds.
The Yazidis are not the only religious minority threatened by the Islamic State. Thousands of Christians have fled Mosul since the extremists captured the city in early June. For now, religious minorities are finding refuge in Kurdish territory in the north. But the Islamic State is capturing villages just a few miles from the Kurdish capital of Erbil. With the security of Kurdish territory in doubt, the U.S. launched air strikes on Islamic State positions late last week.
Organized anti-Yazidi violence dates back to the Ottoman Empire. In the second half of the 19th century, Yazidis were targeted by both Ottoman and local Kurdish leaders, and subjected to brutal campaigns of religious violence. "Yazidis often say they have been the victim of 72 previous genocides, or attempts at annihilation," says Matthew Barber, a scholar of Yazidi history at the University of Chicago who is in Dohuk interviewing Yazidi refugees. "Memory of persecution is a core component of their identity," he says.
Isolated geographically, and accustomed to discrimination, the Yazidis forged an insular culture. Iraq's Yazidis rarely intermarry with other Kurds, and they do not accept religious converts. "They became a closed community," explains Khanna Omarkhali, of the University of Göettingen.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ADAM FERGUSON, THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX
VICTIMS OF HUSSEIN'S REGIME
Yet, as Kurdish speakers, Yazidis often share the same political fate as Iraq's other Kurds. In the late 1970s, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein launched brutal Arabization campaigns against the Kurds in the north. He razed traditional Yazidi villages, and forced the Yazidis to settle in urban centers, disrupting their rural way of life. Hussein constructed the town of Sinjar, and forced the Yazidis to abandon their mountain villages and relocate in the city.
After the United States toppled Hussein in 2003, Iraqi Kurds were given an autonomous region in northern Iraq known as the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). But Sinjar, along with many border regions at the edge of the KRG, remains an area of dispute between the Kurds and the government in Baghdad. The KRG claims Sinjar as Kurdish, while Baghdad still considers the area under its control.
As ISIL sweeps through the Yazidi homeland, Kurds throughout the region are rallying to defend the embattled religious minority. This week, Kurdish fighters from Syria and Turkey crossed into Iraq and joined with the KRG to push back ISIL and secure a safe passage for the Yazidis out of Sinjar. Some Yazidis are even fleeing into war-torn Syria, seeking the protection of Syrian Kurds in the north.
For now, these Kurdish fighters are the only thing standing between the Yazidis and the Islamic State. As he has continued his work with Yazadi refugees, Matthew Barber says that a general panic has set in as hundreds of thousands of new arrivals from western Iraq flood Yazidi villages outside Dohuk, seeking shelter behind Iraqi Kurdish lines. "The Yazidis are terrorized," he says. Refugees are now calling the mass exodus from Sinjar the 73rd attempt at genocide.
With the help of U.S. air support, the Kurds vowed to retake Sinjar in the coming days. For the Yazidis the stakes are especially high. "It's difficult to see how Yazidism could exist if they all left northern Iraq," says Allison. "The struggle is truly existential."
Yazidi survivor and activist Nadia Murad Basee Taha. Photo, Yorgos Karahalis/AP.
On Tuesday, Parliament unanimously passed a motion that will bring Yazidi women and girls who survived sexual slavery to Canada within the next four months. It’s a victory for activists and politicians who, for the better part of a year, urged the Liberal government to extend the generosity that brought more than 30,000 Syrians to this country to Yazidi women and girls.
The Yazidis are a religious minority group who have been brutally targeted by ISIS in northern Iraq, resulting in what the United Nations has called a genocide. The sexual violence committed against Yazidis is considered to be among the worst atrocities happening to women and girls in the world right now, according to the UN.
“For us to see Canada not accepting the injustice that was committed by ISIS is something very important,” 23-year-old survivor and activist Nadia Murad Basee Taha said at a press conference before the vote.
Here’s what you need to know about the Yazidi people, the crisis and what Canada is doing to help.
On August 3, 2014, ISIS militants attacked Sinjar Mountain in northern Iraq, where Yazidi people have lived for generations. ISIS, or Daesh as they are known locally, separated the men from the women and killed them before taking the women into captivity. Yazda, an advocacy organization, has estimated that 5,000 Yazidis were killed in the massacre and 7,000 kidnapped. Young boys were forced to become ISIS fighters.
According to a UN report published in June, ISIS put 80 percent of the women and girls onto the slave market, sold to militants for anywhere from $200 to $1,500 (USD). Most of the women the UN interviewed suffered “violent daily rapes…many women and girls reported being injured as a result of the rapes, suffering bleeding, cuts and bruising.” Murad Basee Taha reported that she was forced to convert to Islam and pray before being raped by her captors.
There are about 700,000 Yazidis in the world, the vast majority living in the area in northern Iraq targeted by ISIS during that siege. Yazda says 90 percent of the community has been displaced with the overwhelming majority in refugee camps.
The UN believes more than 3,200 women and children are still held by ISIS, most in northern Iraq and in war-torn Syria. Others have made it to refugee camps in Turkey and Greece. Yazda spokesperson Murad Ismael said those who remain in Iraq and aren’t in refugee camps are in the Kurdish region of the country where it is “safe” to intervene, where other international aid groups are there doing work.
Germany has taken in more than 1,000 Yazidi women and girls who had been held captive by ISIS, and its government has committed $107 million (USD) over three years to bring more Yazidi women to the country.
What has Canada done so far?
The government had not made Yazidis a priority group until Tuesday. When asked how many Yazidi refugees have been brought to Canada, Citizenship and Immigration responded that it can’t accurately report a number because the department does not screen refugees based on religion. But there have been small scale-community efforts to sponsor Yazidi genocide survivors through the private sponsorship system, such as nine Yazidi refugees who were brought to Winnipeg by community group Operation Ezra.
Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel, her NDP counterpart Jenny Kwan and interim Opposition leader Rona Ambrose have been pushing the government for months to take action, including a motion to recognize the crisis as a genocide in June, which was voted down by the Liberals.
After the UN declared the situation a genocide, the government held an emergency session of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration to hear witnesses on the Yazidi crisis. That didn’t result in any concrete action, but the Liberals did launch a fact-finding mission in Iraq aimed at working with people on the ground to determine the best way to bring Yazidis to Canada. In the meantime, Rempel crafted a non-partisan motion requiring the government acknowledge the genocide and commit to helping the Yazidis.
The motion passed Tuesday means the government officially acknowledges that ISIS is carrying out genocide against the Yazidi people, and will take immediate action on UN recommendations, such as funding psychosocial support. The most significant commitment to is that Canada will provide asylum to Yazidi women and girls within 120 days.
What happens now?
The government has yet to determine how many women and girls will be brought to Canada and where they will come from. Immigration Minister John McCallum said the fact-finding mission to Iraq has just returned and the department now has the information it needs to figure out which countries Canadian officials can safely enter and intervene. He noted that the situation in the region is “complex” and “could pose risks” to the women and the workers trying help.
Yazda, the organization working with Murad, says it has already identified and interviewed 1,096 women and girls who’ve escaped sexual slavery in Iraq and say that these women could make good candidates.
Oct 25, 2016 - Bringing them to Canada from each area has its own set of challenges and ... speak to reporters after MPs unanimously adopted a motion to help the victims. ... but the government's actions in the days and months to come will be the ... Ambrose said because many of the Yazidi women and girls have been ...
Oct 24, 2016 - Canada to welcome Yazidi refugees within months: John McCallum ... WATCH ABOVE: Ambrose demands Liberals to help Yazidi women held ... We have just come back from a mission in the region to determine ... Vanessa Young died at 15 after taking the drug cisapride while also suffering from bulimia.
Oct 24, 2016 - Yazidis Fleeing ISIS To Arrive In Canada Within 120 Days: ... slavery and calls on the government to do all it can to aid Yazidi women and girls.
Oct 25, 2016 - Rona Ambrose has said a minimum of 1000 Yazidi women and girls ... Politics · Althia Raj · Bill C-51 · Politics Videos · Parliament of Canada · Althia Raj on Facebook ... on the Liberal government to help her fellow Yazidis within the next ... "I would like to thank Canada on behalf of the victims who will come .
First Published: 03 June 2005 Yezdinar Village, Iraq
Dohuk is a welcoming place. After walking or taking taxis inside and around the city for two days, I covered enough ground and talked with enough people to see that while the welcome is clear for American, British, and other visitors, troublemakers can expect an entirely different greeting. People in Dohuk say they have no intentions of going back, or of carrying useless boulders from the past as they move forward.
After being in a war zone for nearly half a year, a few days in Dohuk becomes a chance to reconnect with civilized society, bustling with a people in hurried pursuit of progress. Seeing a little girl tucked away in a corner of her family’s stall in the marketplace, absorbed in a book she’s reading about the solar system, it’s easy to peek over her shoulder and peer into her imagination, and see it take her into space as Iraq’s first astronaut. In her young life, never having known the fiery cage of war, the possibilities are still limitless.
Two Kids: One Bright Future
I had been hearing about the Yezidi people who live in villages near Dohuk. Followers of an ancient religion, whose proponents claim it is the oldest in the world, there are thought to be about a half million Yezidis, living mostly in the area of Mosul, with smaller bands in forgotten villages scattered across northern Iraq, Syria, Turkey and other lands. Saddam had labeled the Yezidis “Devil Worshippers,” a claim I’d heard other Iraqis make, but no source offered substantiation. I wanted to know more.
Nearly everything I heard pronounced as fact about Yezidis was certain in only one narrow sense: before long, someone equally confident of their information would provide a different set of facts. The only way to find the truth would be to talk with Yezidis in situ, so I asked an interpreter in Dohuk to take me to a Yezidi village.
This wasn’t my first foray in search of mythic danger. I’d learned some things from when I tracked down cannibals in the jungles of northern India. A current anthropological rap sheet is of paramount necessity before venturing alone into the wild. Safety first is my motto.
“Will they kill me?” I asked.
“Of course not!” he answered immediately, incredulous at the very idea. “They are Yezidi! They are good people.”
“Just asking.” I said, thinking safety first.
The Road from Dohuk
The village of Yezdinar is about twenty miles outside of Dohuk, and on the way I reflected on what I knew of the religion.
Some believe Yezidism is over 5,000 years old, while others claim thousands of years older. Nobody seems to know. The Yezidis have their own fuzziness on dates, and for the Yezidis it seems enough to say that theirs is the oldest religion in the world. The Hindus of India make the same claim about their religion, while others in Nepal and Tibet make calendar claims of their own. One might intuit such proclamations as offering evidence of the essential truth of a religion–having withstood the test of time, it must be the order of things. Some see age as the proof of the rightness of one path over others, implying that precedence isprecedence, like when a Muslim man in Kashmir once said to me, as if it would explain everything, “Ahhhh, the Sikhs, they are just a young religion.”
Some tenets of Yezidism are readily understandable to westerners: Yezidis worship one God but no prophets. They recognize and respect both Jesus and Mohammed, but as men of faith, not prophets. Where the doctrine starts to become hazy is when the angels appear.
An older Yezidi man with whom I speak on occasion says there are seven angels: Izrafael, Jibrael, Michael, Nordael, Dardael, Shamnael, and Azazael. All were gathered at a heavenly meeting when God told them they should bow to none other than Him. This arrangement worked for a span of forty thousand years, until God created Adam by mixing the “elements”: earth, air, water and fire. When God told the seven angels to bow before Adam, six complied. A seventh angel, citing God’s order that the angels bow only to God, refused. Although this angel was God’s favorite, his disobedience cast him from grace.
There is some dispute among Yezidis about the identity of the seventh angel; some believe it was Jibrael, while others believe it was Izrafael. Much seems lost to time. But whatever his former name, when this seventh Angel, most beloved of God, fell from grace, he was the most powerful angel in Heaven and on Earth. He rose as the Archangel Malak Ta’us. (Although this, too, is the subject of some debate; some Yezidis call him Ta’us Malak.) His herald is the peacock, for it is “by far the most beautiful bird in the world,” and the name, Malak Ta’us, literally means “King of Peacocks.”
Most Yezidis equate Malak Ta’us with Satan, a mainstay in many religions but otherwise not mentioned in Yezidism. Some Yezidis claim that Malak Ta’us is like a god himself, at least in terms of his power-particularly over the fortunes of the descendents of Adam. In this religion, God created Adam, but no Eve, and therefore all men came from Adam alone. The Yezidis were first born among all men, and consider themselves to be “the chosen people.”
Malak Ta’us descended from Heaven to Earth on a Wednesday to tell man that he is the Archangel, making this a day for religious observation. The Yezidis mark the day by not bathing on Wednesday evenings. They believe their dead must wash, and for this they need water; the dead wash on the holy day of Wednesday.
Never on Wednesday: Laundry Day in Yezdinar
Not only do shards of Judeo-Christianity glint in this amalgam, but a close look also reveals pieces of Hinduism, especially in the prominence of castes. There are five Yezidi castes-depending on who one asks-the “most important” being the Pir, then Shaikh, Kawal, Murabby, and finally the Mureed (the follower). Descriptions of the Mureed are similar to the Dalits of Hinduism. The Yezidis are strictly forbidden to marry outside the Yezidi, and must marry within their caste.
Yezidis have two holy books: the Book of Revelation and the Black Book. The old Yezidi man informed me that although the Black Book is kept secret so it cannot be defamed, he would like to translate it into English. The title apparently has been rendered.
While Kurds say the Yezidis are Kurds, the Yezidis claim to be neither Arab nor Kurd, simply Yezidis or, perhaps, Yezidi first and Kurd second. In a fashion similar to how the word “Jewish” is used, the designation “Yezidi” applies to both a set of religious beliefs and a genetic or tribal identity. Because Yezidis keep to themselves, it is easy for others to misunderstand, or deliberately mis-project, the Yezidi religion. This can have dire consequences.
The most recent example was when Saddam Hussein labeled the Yezidis “Devil Worshippers,” which he justified by equating Malak Ta’us with Satan. This was no minor misunderstanding, nor was it just a rhetorical flourish, but a deliberate attempt to exploit the reservoir of suspicion that encircles enclaves of people who keep to themselves, and in this case to cleave the Yezidis from the Kurds.
Exacerbating matters was that the Yezidi religion is such an amalgam of beliefs and practices. History, more so than theology, provides a key to this code. When a Yezidi holy man asserted that Yezidis all love Jesus, too, it lent credence to other reports I’d heard that Yezidism conflated with religions such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and even Zoroastrianism over the centuries, as the Yezidi came into contact with the followers of these religions.
Even without an authoritative timeline showing when these mergers occurred, the mixing of diverse dogma and symbolism in Yezidism does not flow logically or track a linear course of thinking. It goes far beyond the bounds of any off-the-shelf syncretism, and stands as testament for the ability of the Yezidis to dissimulate in the face of destruction to preserve the body. Rather than cast off their beliefs in subjugation to conquerors, they instead incorporated elements of the dominant belief system into their amalgam, using their cultural and racial identity as Yezidi for the mortar. They built their faith, and their villages, with this concrete; its ability to withstand the destructive forces of outside elements would have a severe test in recent times.
Saddam Hussein’s hatred for Yezidis and Kurds was matched only by his desire to eradicate every last one of them from Iraq. Even though most Kurds are actually Sunni Muslims, as is the now imprisoned dictator, his hatred for them remained unabated, and was relentless. Hussein knew that a collision of religious beliefs carved fault lines between the Yezidis and the Kurds who surround them. He used his common point of reference with the Kurds to sharpen their divide from the Yezidis, by calling them “Devil Worshippers.” But just because the Yezidis don’t have a Satan figure in their holy book, doesn’t mean they can’t spot a devil when they see one. Together with the Kurds, they resisted Hussein’s will. Today, while the real peacock sits in jail, the unvanquished Yezidis are rebuilding their homeland.
Homes in the Yezdinar Village
The Village
The sun approached apex above clear skies, warming and drying the air as we entered the Yezdinar village. Several Yezidi men welcomed me graciously, and though my interpreter was Sunni Muslim, they welcomed him, too. None of the men had ever met an American.
The Headman invited me into his home, where small children darted here and about, clearly excited yet smiling shyly at the foreigner in strange clothes. The men took off their shoes and as I started to unlace my boots, the Headman motioned that I could leave them on. I recognized this as an honor, but smiled and removed my battered boots before following them into a rectangular room. Pillows cushioning the floor and propped up against the walls were the only furniture, but at one end of the room a television flickered silently while an air conditioner hummed steadily at the other.
There were six men in the room, all sitting cross-legged. Four Yezidi men sat along the wall across from me, the Headman smoked a home-rolled cigarette.
My interpreter sat to my left, and we began with customary civilities:
“Thank you for inviting me into your home,” I said through the interpreter.
“You are my honored guest,” said the Headman, who told me his name was Mr. Qatou Samou Haji Aldanani.
The conversation thus launched, we meandered across tenses and back again as we talked about the village and the forces that had shaped its fortunes.
Mr. Qatou said there were twenty families in the village, some with nine or ten children; while some men in Yezdinar have up to five wives, others keep only one. They had sheep, cows and ducks, he said, though I hadn’t seen a pond.
The village had come back strong after being destroyed by Saddam in 1978. The people were completely unhinged, Mr. Qatou said, when Saddam’s army bombed the village flat, then came and stole absolutely everything; sheep, cows, ducks, everything. Even a dog.
“You had a dog?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And they took the dog?” Silence expressed the residue of disgust.
Mr. Qatou described how Saddam’s army grabbed two men, each twenty years old, shot them, and then forced the families pay for the bullets.
At times throughout our conversation, the chronologies loosened and grew confusing. I remain unsure about whether the men were killed during that same attack, or at some other time. But it seemed both impolitic and impolite to try to pin down the date when the mention of the memory cast a shadow over our thoughts.
I wanted to know more about Mr. Qatou’s life. He said he was born in 1949, and after being drafted into the Army, was sent to fight the Iranians for 7 years before being captured and imprisoned in Iran for 10 years. When it came to time sequences, I questioned the competence of my interpreter, for the numbers and years never seemed to completely adhere to history; and though the interpreter was kind, he was less than fastidious. His English wasn’t entirely fluent.
Red Cross Document
Sensing the congestion this confusion was having on our conversation, Mr. Qatou rose, exited the room, and returned with a document, from the International Red Cross, confirming that he was born in 1949; had been captured by Iranian forces in 1982; and then repatriated to Iraq in September 1990.
Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of 1990. When the US announced that the invasion would not stand, Iran released the Iraqi prisoners of war. This meant that Mr. Qatou had come home just in time for another war. His life was defined by war: drafted to fight Iran; captured by Iran; released after years only as fodder for the Americans, and today, I being the first American he met, sitting with him in his home, trying to sort the tangle of dates and facts.
What is certain is that during this second war of Mr. Qatou’s life (the “Gulf War” for the first Coalition), the Kurds received support from US Special Forces and others. Sent to bolster Peshmerga strength, they distracted Saddam’s army in the north, while the Coalition expelled Iraq from Kuwait in the south.
Iraq’s army accordioned in defeat, and the first Coalition folded most of their tents and sailed home, leaving the Kurds to fend for themselves. Saddam had revenge on his breath when he turned his attention north and unsheathed his fury against the Kurds. Initially a slaughter of wholesale proportions, somehow, still the Kurds kept fighting. They hung on until the US gave military support and maintained the no-fly zone overhead. In 1993, Mr. Qatou was able to return to the rubble that had once been Yezdinar.
An Iraqi. A Kurd. A Yezidi. A village Headman. Whatever the label, more than forty years after his birth, this man came home. Only now, after the latest war, does Mr. Qatou finally have confidence in the peace, after more than a half century of life lived under orders or under sentence.
This seemed like the moment to ask the question, “What do you think of the United States?”
“We cry when America loses one soldier. We pray for the soldiers every night.”
Many Kurds had expressed the same sentiment. One had said poetically: “For every drop of American blood, we shed one thousand Kurdish tears.”
“What do you think about the United Kingdom?” I asked.
“Also very good.”
His answer for some of the other countries, those that abandoned his people to get back to their beer and wine, was merely a quick frown followed by silence.
Ever the gracious host, Mr. Qatou asked me if I was hungry, and if I would share a meal with him.
“Yes!” I said, a little too fast, and probably a little louder than he expected. I thought he would never ask.
My enthusiastic acceptance evoked hearty laughter from the other five men, who spoke among themselves in Kurdish.
“Why is everyone laughing?” I asked.
“We thought you to say ‘no,’” Mr. Qatou replied.
“I am very hungry,” I said, my enthusiasm not waning in the least. “I would definitely like to eat!”
And they laughed again, and Mr. Qatou suggested we tour his village while his wife prepared our meals.
“As you wish,” I said, and we all rose and began walking out. I stopped to put my boots on, their bad condition seeming somehow more obvious to me.
New Roof for the Sheep Pen
We started our walk around the village, our conversation covering more ground than our feet.
“Do you have any problems in the village?”
“What do you mean?” asked Mr. Qatou.
“Security problems?”
“Is very safe.”
“Problems with running the village?”
“Water is our only problem. Our well is a problem. Otherwise, all is good.”
“May we look at your well?” I asked.
We walked to the well and when the men removed the stones from the sheet-metal cover, I peered down into the blackness. I gestured my observation and Mr. Qatou nodded. He dropped a stone into the well; it seemed to take two or three seconds for the splash to echo back from the darkness.
“That’s deep.”
“Yes.”
I asked to see the water run, and as water came from the hose, I coaxed my fatigued Nikon to photograph him, but having gone the way of the boots, the camera is mostly broken, so it took several attempts to photograph the scene. Once I got a decent photo, the men replaced the cover and we headed to the village school.
Mr. Qatou demonstrating the town water supply
About 70 children attend classes in grades one through six. Mr. Qatou called to the school headmaster who lived next door, and he took us into the school courtyard. I noticed a chalkboard with something written in Kurdish on the bottom in Arabic characters. According to the interpreter, it must have been written by a child, and it read: Don’t put your hand in fire. If you put your hand in fire your hand will burn and you will cry. Mr. Qatou explained that kids had to be taught about fire in the village. When I told him that American kids burn down houses every day as a result of playing with matches, he seemed genuinely surprised.
Blackboard in Yezdinar Village school
We left the school and continued strolling through the village, with Mr. Qatou pointing out the landmarks that one would expect in a village that had been nearly decimated by war. He showed me where the young men had been shot, and we ambled around heaps of rubble that had been buildings before Saddam’s army came rampaging. Something made me think of recent scandalous headlines, and I asked:
“Did you see the photos of Saddam without clothes?”
“Yes”, Mr. Qatou said.
“Many people were angry by the photos,” I said.
“Why would they be angry?”
“What did the Iraqi people think when they saw him with no clothes?”
“He was a bad man.”
“Do you want him to be executed? To be killed?”
“I want him to stay in jail.”
We found ourselves in front of his house. Once we removed our shoes and boots, we walked inside and sat on the cushions. His wife delivered roasted duck and vegetables, and I ate more than my share. The meal was delicious. My appetite and appreciation for his wife’s skill in the kitchen filled him with pride the way that duck filled my stomach. It was a most pleasant meal.
Roast Duck, Yezidi-Style
His grandchildren gathered around him, peeking at me from behind his weathered arms. He seemed unaware of the slight smile that eased across his face whenever he looked at the children. They constantly sought his approval for each small gesture of interaction with this stranger in their grandfather’s home, which he granted with slight nods.
“My children’s children are free…it was worth it.”
The demands of digestion had quieted my questioning, but he still wanted to talk, so I listened intently. Although I had only known him for a few short hours, it was clear that Mr. Qatou liked to talk about the future.
“My life is nearly finished,” he said, almost wistfully. “But will be good for my children and my children’s children.”
“Yes,” I said. “It was worth it, no?”
“What?” he asked, confused at my meaning.
“Your struggle,” I said. “Now you are free.”
Mr. Qatou smiled and disappeared into his memories briefly, then he spoke:
“My life was mostly soldier and prisoner. My children are free.”
In a Child’s Eyes: Happiness Under a Rainbow Umbrella. A Yezidi Kurdish-Iraqi schoolgirl’s drawing shows her imagination of the world
The Yazidi Bloodbath one in Long Line of Persecution
Members of the secretive Yazidi religion are deeply concerned over their future in Iraq after last Tuesday’s devastating attack, which massacred nearly five hundred of their number, in a horrific suicide bombing on their villages. Hardly was Tuesday’s attack on Qahtaniya, located about 70 miles west of Mosul, the first perpetrated against this small sect, numbering barely 500,000 in all.
Some 72 separate attacks were recorded at the hands of Turks, Arabs, Persians and Kurds throughout the Yazidi long history. And no less than 192 Yazidis have been killed in the past four years, since the US Army invaded Iraq in 2003. Although no single organization has yet taken responsibility over Tuesday’s brutality, it clearly bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda, which has been known to regroup in northern Iraq, after being driven out by determined US and Iraqi military action, from their former strongholds in Anbar and Diyala provinces.
Most of the killings were perpetrated on religious grounds as fundamentalist and Islamist groups see Yazidis as infidels who either have to convert to Islam, or be killed.
Fatwas against the Yazidis have been issued even in Mosques by some extremist Muslim preachers. Analysts assume, that the present attack on the Yazidi sect has its origin in an equally brutal incident last April, when a young Yazidi woman, named Du’a Khalil Aswad was stoned to death in Bashika, Mosul, in a guesome example of collective “honor killing”. Islamist groups active in this region exploited the incident, capitalizing on this crime by urging revenge upon the Yazidis, claiming that the woman had converted to Islam to join her Muslim lover, characterizing the murder as ‘martyrdom’, rather than honor killing in the Yazidi sect tradition. Indeed, less than two weeks later, 23 Yazidi workers were massacred, when gunmen hijacked a bus, separated the Christian and Muslim passengers from the Yazidi, which were forcibly taken and executed by gunfire standing against a village wall.
Last Tuesday’s carnage had also clear foreboding signs already written on the wall. The Iraqiyun News Agency which reported eyewitness accounts over leaflets signed by the Mujahideen Army were threatening members of the Yazidi sect. Such leaflets were distributed in Mosul on Monday, the day before the attack, demanding Yazidis to convert to Islam or leave the northern city within three days. The next day someone already struck with horrifying consequences at these hapless people. (The village in ruines after the attack can be seen in the picture below).
Origins of the Yazidi secret faith
The Yazidi or Yezidi are primarily ethnic Kurds. Although the Yazidis speak Kurdish, the origins of Yazidism are ultimately shrouded in Middle Eastern prehistory. During the regime of Saddam Hussein, Yazidis were considered by the Ba’ath Party to be Arabs and thus maneuvered to oppose the Kurds, by tilting the ethnic balance in Kurdistan. However, both ethnic different groups fought together against Ba’athist troops, often in mixed Peshmerga units. Since the 2003 US occupation of Iraq, the Kurds would want the Yazidi to be recognized as ethnic Kurds to increase their numbers and influence under the new political circumstances. The Yazidi believe that the founder of their religion, Sheikh Adi Ibn Musafir al Umawi, was a manifestation of Melek Taus, “the Peacock Angel”, the central figure of their faith. In their art and sculpture Melek Taus is depicted as peacock. The Yazidi are thought to be unique in their depiction of their primary god as a bird. Tucked away in a mountainous area in northern Iraq, the Yazidi maintain their traditions so shrouded in secrecy, that no outsiders have seen its most important rituals. In fact, few people besides Yazidi religious leaders have copies of the group’s holy books. Some of their opponents even swear, that their obscure faith derided by some as a religion of devil worship. This may well be one of the reasons, but certainly not the only one for the profound Muslim hatred for this strange obscure sect.
But another reason for such irrational attitude, seems a Yazidi belief that their faith is a derivation from Umayyad Caliph Yazid I (Yazid bin Muawiyah), who is revered by some Yazidis. Yazid, second Umayyad caliph (680–683), is particularly noted for his suppression of a rebellion led by Hussein, the son of ‘Ali who brought about the death of Hussein at the Battle of Karbala’ (680). For the Shi’a Muslims, Yazid is the consummate villain, who will always be remembered for his murder of Hussein and persecution of his family. In fact there is little difference between the majority of Sunni and the Shia opinions in this respect.
As for their religious shrines, Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir al Umawi’s burial place is at Lalish, also called: Lalisha nûranî a small mountain valley situated in Iraqi Kurdestan, about 50km north-east of the city of Mosul. Musafir’s resting place is the focal point of Yazidi pilgrimage. Yazidis living in the region are expected to make a yearly pilgrimage to attend the autumn Feast of the Assembly which is celebrated each September.
Ethnic researchers trying to dig into the Yazidi faith assess that their religion actually blends elements of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other faiths. But there are two other major sects of the Yazidani. Among these the most widely known is the Alevi or Alawi sect. The Arab Alawi in Syria are a branch of the same Alevism, Alawi being the Arabic form of the word and Alevi, coming from the Turkish pronunciation. But neither of these can be classified as real Muslims except by a long stretch, though they do accept Muhammad as one of the avatars of the deity.
While the Yazidi Kurds live mainly in Shangal region of Iraqi Kurdistan around Mosul and Duhok, Efrin and Qamishlo cities in Kurdistan of Syria, Weransehir, Merdin, Midyat, Batman, Diyarbakir, Sirnax in Kurdistan of Turkey and Armenia, Georgia and Russia, there are little known concentrations abroad, some in Europe and others in Canada. A Yazidi community in Canada is associated with the London Yazidi Community Centre there. Some of the foreign born Yazidi have reached prominent positions among their foreign communities. Perhaps the most well known is a young Yazidi woman named Feleknas Uca, 31. Born in Celle in northern Germany, she became a Kurdish member of the European Parliament in 1999, representing Germany’s Party of Democratic Socialism, when only 22 years old!
But whether this small, but courageous community will survive the massive Muslim onslaught much longer, remains obscure as its ancient faith, to which they staunchly adhere to.
The Yazidi shrine at Lalish, burrial place of Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir al Umawi’s is located in in Iraqi Kurdestan, about 50km north-east of the city of Mosul.
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It has been estimated that 23 million Yezidis have been killed by Muslims and their other self-proclaimed enemies during the past 700 years. The Yezidi population continues to decrease. Just 200 years ago, it was 2 million. It is now estimated to be less than one million worldwide. A current “incentive” to the ongoing slaughter is a belief that states that if a Muslim slays a Yezidi great awards await him or her in Heaven. If a Muslim man slays a Yezidi he is told that he will be rewarded with 72 virgins in the next world. Unless such “incentives” cease and this senseless killing is stopped the Yezidis could face permanent extinction. If this happens, the world will not only lose a very peaceful and unbiased people, but an irreplaceable link to its past. The Yezidis, who originally migrated to Iraq from India, are currently the caretakers of the oldest religious tradition on Earth. Genocide of August 3rd, 2014 Iraq Vian Dakhil, a Yezidi Parliament Member, collapses in tears as she begs the Iraqi government to intervene in the genocide against the Yezidis.
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April 2007, Iraq A slaughter of the Yezidis occurred in April, 2007, when 23 of them were murdered by Kurdish Muslims. In August of that year, four trucks driven by fanatical Muslims and laden with explosives were driven into the Yezidi town of Sinjar and detonated. Eight hundred Yezidis lost their lives in the attack and another 200 were gravely injured. Two hundred Yezidi children lost both parents and became orphans. But this is not the most recent attempt at Yezidi massacre by Muslim extremists. Following video shows part of the attack on Yezidis in 2007.
The lady shown at 1:27 mark is crying that there is no one left in her family.
1975, Iraq Saddam Hussein instigated a pogrom of Yezidi extermination by labeling them “Devil Worshipers” and thereby triggered whole scale of persecution by the Iraqis. Throughout the Middle East it was no secret that Saddam Hussein’s goal was systematic cultural genocide of the Yezidis. Under his savage regime the Yezidis were uprooted from their villages, their farmland taken, and they were denied both jobs and medical care. Approximately 250 Yezidi villages in the Sinjar Mountains were destroyed, and the river Dejela, which supplies the Yezidi communities with drinking water, was contaminated with poisons. All the sacred sites of the Yezidis were vandalized and threatened. Although this pogrom was lifted briefly following the US invasion and Saddam’s capture, the harsh conditions appear to be returning. Kurdish Muslims are currently blocking food supplies to the Yezidi villages and they continue to prevent the Yezidis from cleaning up the poisons in their water supply. Yezidis can not visit their relatives in many villages which have become Muslim controlled, and those Yezidis moving between villages risk both torture and death. Within the mosques adjacent to the Yezidi villages mullahs continue to speak about the “Devil-worshipping Yezidis” and encourage their conversion to Islam or murder. 1850-1935– click here for source
Hemoyê Shero (1850-1935), Yezidi tribal leader in Shingal, saved with his Fighters around 20,000 Christians during the Armenian genocide from 1915 in the Shingal Mountains. When the Ottoman / Turkish pursuers demanded the surrender of the Christian refugees, Hemoyê Shero decided to defend the Christians.“The Ottomans sent their messengers to the Yezidis in the Shingal Mountains and demanded in a letter the surrender of the Christian refugees, otherwise the Yezidis themselves would suffer the consequences. The Yezidi tribal leader tore up the letter and sent the messenger back to the Ottoman army – without clothes.”“How can I accept to surrender the Armenians to the Ottomans, who came seeking help to us? I promised them and swear by my honor to defend them and don’t deliever them to the Ottomans, as longs as a tear left in me. If my sons and I have to die for it, so be it!”The local knowledge Yezidi hid the Christians in caves and under ledges. When the Ottoman/Turks attacked Shingal from the South, the Yezidis returned fire and held over 2 months. many of the Ottoman soldiers were killed, also a lot of the Yezidis lost their lifes.. nevertheless, it was possible to force the Ottomans to retreat. Several Christian families remained in Shingal and settled in the region where they live partially until today with the Yezidis.*The Ottoman Turks massacred at least 1,5 Million Armenians, 950,000 Pontus Greeks, 750,000 Assyrians and 400.000 Yezidis during the Genocide 1915-1916. They still deny it. 630 AD. The Muslims started a series of wars against the Yezidis by killing and abducting many people.
637 AD A major war was instigated against the Yezidis, and then Muslims burned and destroyed much of their territory.980-81 AD Islamic Kurdish armies surrounded the Yezidis living in the Hakkar region. They promised the Yezidis mercy if they surrendered to them but failed to keep their promise. Instead, most of the Yezidis were massacred. Those who survived were forced to convert to Islam. 1107 AD About 50,000 Yezidi families were destroyed during a period of Muslim expansionism. 1218 AD The Mongols under the leadership of Hulagu Khan reached the Yezidis and slaughtered many of them, but the Mongols met strong resistance from the Yezidi warriors and eventually retreated.. 1245-52 AD Hulagu Khan’s armies resumed their battle against the Yezidis and slaughtered thousands of them. 1254 AD A conflict occurred between the Muslim Bader al-Din Lolo, the “Mayor of Mosul,” and a Yezidi leader named Sheikh Hassan. Bader al-Din’s men captured Sheikh Hassan, executed him, and then hung his naked body on a Mosul gate where it could be seen by many other Yezidis. This event led to a war which the Yezidis lost, forcing them to flee to the mountains and leave behind their lands, villages, and temples. Everything the Yezidis left behind was destroyed. Even their most sacred shrine at Lalish was desecrated, with the bones of their greatest saint, Sheikh Adi, being taken from his tomb and burned in front of the unbelieving Yezidis. 1414 AD A Persian leader named Jalal al-Din Mohammed bin izidin yousif al-Halawani led an armed force against the Yezidis who were living in the Hakkar Mountains. His raid was supported by Kurds in the area. Most of the Yezidis descended from Sheikh Adi’s followers were killed, and the remaining bones of Sheikh Adi were taken from his tomb and burned in front of Yezidi hostages. 1585 AD A Kurdish leader named Ali Saidi Beg from Botan province attacked Yezidis living in Sinjar and killed more than 600 of them. The Yezidi women were abducted and raped by the conquerors in front of the Yezidis’ captured soldiers. 1640-41 AD Yezidi villages near Mosul were looted and other Yezidi villages were attacked by Ahmed Pasha, a Turkish Muslim Ottoman governor, along with 70,000 armed soldiers. Hundreds of thousands of Yezidis were killed. 1648 AD The Yezidi Sheikh Merza revolted against the Ottomans controlling Mosul who had previously beheaded his two brothers. The Ottoman general Shamsi Pasha was then summoned from Turkey to attack the Yezidis. Many Yezidis lost their lives and Sheikh Merza was beheaded. 1715 AD Hassan Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Baghdad, attacked the Yezidis with a huge army in order to punish them. Those Yezidis who were not killed were forced to flee into Syria. Pasha made an alliance with the local Arabs and then continued to attack the Yezidi unmercifully. 1733 AD The Ottoman Ahmed Pasha destroyed the Yezidi villages in the Zab river area and committed mass killings. This raid was followed by one under the leadership of Hussein Pasha that completely destroyed the Yezidi villages and forced 3000 Yezidis to convert to Islam. 1743 AD The Persian leader Nadir Shah guided his troops into Yezidi territory near the Zab River, about 30 kms west of Mosul. They looted the villages and captured most of the Yezidis as hostages. Those that refused to obey were instantly killed. 1752 AD An Ottoman pasha named Sulaiman Pasha attacked the Yezidis in Sinjar. His campaign of killing and looting lasted two years. Three thousand Yezidis were killed and 500 women were taken as hostages. 1767 AD An Ottoman pasha and mayor of Mosul, Amin Pasha, had his son lead troops against the Yezidis living in Sinjar. He demanded the Yezidis to bring him 1000 sheep. When they brought only 800 he ordered his men to slay a large number of Yezidis. 1771 AD Bedagh Beg, one of the Yezidi leaders from Sheikhan, revolted against the Ottoman mayor of Mosul because he sought to convert the Yezidis to Islam. The Mosul Mayor allied with Bairam Beg, a Moslem Kurdish leader, to kill Bedagh Beg and most of his men. 1774 AD The Ottoman Mayor of Mosul, Sulaiman Oash, attacked the Yezidis in the Sinjar area. The Yezidi villages were looted and destroyed. 1779 AD The Ottoman Mayor of Mosul sent more military units into Yezidi territory of Sinjar. They looted and destroyed the villages and killed many Yezidi. 1785 AD The Ottoman Mayor of Mosul, Abdel Bagi, attacked the Yezidis in Sinjar to punish them. The Moslem soldiers were at first defeated, but then they allied with some Arab forces and routed the Yezidis. 1786-87 AD Yezidi ruler Cholo Beg and his forces went to war with the Moslem Kurdish leader of Imadiyah. Cholo Beg lost the battle and many Yezidis were killed. 1789-90 AD Ismael Beg, the Prince of Imadiyah, killed Cholo Beg and replaced him on the Yezidi throne with one of his relatives, Khanger Beg. When Khanger Beg retired soon afterwards, Hassan Beg, the son of Cholo Beg, was crowned in his stead. Hassan continued the rebellion of his father by revolting against the Imadiyah Prince Kifbad, during which soldiers from both sides were killed in great numbers. 1792-93 AD The Ottoman Mayor of Mosul, Mohammed Pasha Al-Jalili, destroyed and burned eight Yezidi villages in the Sinjar area. 1794 AD The Ottoman Mayor of Mosul resumed the attack on a village in Sinjar called Mehrcan to punish the Yezidis. But he failed and lost the ensuing battle. 1795 AD The Ottomans sent Sulaiman Pasha to Sinjar’s Yezidi villages. With the help of the Kurd Prince Abdullah Beg Kahin and the Abdulrahman Pasha Prince of the Sulaimania Kurdish government, he looted, incinerated, and completely destroyed the Yezidi villages. He also abducted and kidnapped 60 Yezidi women and 650 domestic animals. 1799-1800 AD The Mayor of Baghdad, Abdul Aziz Beg Al-Shawi, destroyed 25 Yezidi villages in the Sheikhan region. Both women and children were abducted and 45 Yezidis were executed. Their heads were then brought to Baghdad as symbols of victory. 1802-3 AD The Mayor of Mosul, Ali Pasha, brought the administration of the Yezidis in the Sinjar region under his strict control. In doing so he found it necessary to attack some rebellious Yezidis from the north while overseeing an Arab raid on them from the south. The attack lasted for several months, during which several Yezidi villages were razed. The surviving Yezidis agreed to accept the rule of Ali Pasha even though they were forced to convert to Islam. When more Yezidis rebelled in 1807 the battle was resumed and 50 Yezidi villages were destroyed. 1809-10 AD The Ottoman Mayor of Baghda attacked the Yezidis in Sinjar. His army looted Sinjar, Mehrkan, and other Yezidi villages. Many Yezidis lost their lives. 1832 AD Bader Khan Beg, the Moslem Kurdish Prince of Botan, tortured and killed the Yezidi leader Ali Beg. The Muslim Kurds then committed an unprecedented massacre of thousands of Yezidis while destroying their villages. Many Yezidis tried to escape by traveling across the Tigris River. Most of them could not swim and were either drowned or captured. Those that were captured were given the option of converting to Islam or dying as martyrs. 1833 AD The Kurdish ruler of Rawandez attacked the Yezidis at Aqra in accordance with a religious mandate from Mulla Yahya Al-Muzuri, a Kurdish Moslem leader. Five hundred Yezidis were killed in the upper Zab region. The Sinjar area was also attacked with many Yezidi lives lost. 1838 AD The Otoman Mayor of Diarbeker attacked the Yezidis in the Sinjar region and killed many of them. In the same year, the Ottoman Mayor of Mosul Tayar Pasha attacked the Jaddala area of Sinjar and ordered the Yezidis to pay taxes. When Tayar Pash sent envoys to the Yezidis in Mehrkan village to hear the complaints of the Yezidis, the envoys were killed. Tayar Pasha sought vengeance and invaded the Yezidi villages. In order to protect themselves, the Yezidis withdrew to caves and tried to fight back by ambushing their enemy. Tayar Pasha had lost many men and he eventually retired back to Mosul. Peace was resumed in the Sinjar area. 1892 AD The Yezidis were attacked by the Ottoman leader Omer Wahbi Pasha. He gave the Yezidis the choice of converting to Islam or paying higher taxes, or death. The Yezidis resisted and Omar Pasha, in alliance with the Moslem Kurds, attacked the Yezidis in the Sinjar and Sheikhan regions. About 15,000 Yezidis were either killed or forced to accept Islam. The Pasha then attacked Lalish and the tomb of Sheikh Adi, carrying away to Mosul the sacred relics of the Yezidis. For seven years following this time the Lalish pilgrimage sanctuary was used as a Moslem school. 1906 AD The Mayor of Mezory, Mr. Saddeq Al-Dammalogi, received an order from the Mayor of Mosul to remove all Yezidis from Lalish and use the temple there as a Muslim school. The Yezidis were persuaded to leave Lalish for one year. 1914-17 AD During the First World War the Yezidis assisted more than 20,000 Armenian people who fled from the Ottoman Turks. All these anti-Yezidi activities – and many more – have been documented by Islamic authors. With sincere thanks to Ali Seedo Rashi, President – Yezidi Cultural Association in Iraq for his source article: “The Yezidism”.
YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING FOR THE GREAT #YAZIDI PEOPLE - look at the torture of these beutiful women and children ...it will take years to heal them and give them back joy, hope and their importance and passion for life... shame on u #Kurdish.... thought better of u.... u aint no creepy #Turkey!!!!
Iraqi Kurdistan PM opposes Canada’s ‘organized migration’ of Yazidis
Iraqi Kurdistan PM Nechirvan Barzani. Photo: KRG
HEWLÊR-Erbil, Iraq’s Kurdistan region,— The Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq opposes the Canadian plan to bring what could be thousands of Kurdish Yazidi refugees to Canada in the next four months.
The office of Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani issued a strongly worded statement Thursday, the same day Canadian MPs convened on Parliament Hill to hear testimony from German officials who organized that country’s efforts to rescue Yazidi survivors of the genocide taking place in north Iraq.
“Yazidis are indigenous minority and [the Kurdish regional government] is against any organized attempt to mass migrate members of its community,” said the statement released to CBC News by a spokeswoman for Barzani.
“Prime Minister Barzani thinks the aid and support should be delivered to them in their country.”
A senior official in Barzani’s government went further, in an exclusive interview with CBC News, saying the administration is upset with the Canadian government, claiming there has been no consultation with the regional Kurdish authority or the Yazidi community in northern Iraq.
The first time Yazidis heard about the Canadian plan was in the media, said Khairi Bozani, the Kurdish government’s director general of Yazidi affairs, which is part of the ministry of endowment and religious affairs in the semi-autonomous region.
“How is that possible for the people of one country to decide for the people of another country that they’re going to come and take 10,000–15,000 people out?” Bozani told CBC News. “They never consulted with the government.”
Kurdish Yazidi refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan (Photo). Captured Kurdish Yazidi women were used as sex slaves by Islamic State. Photo credit: Scanpix
He urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to open a dialogue with officials in Erbil, the Kurdish capital, but suggested the snub has strained relations. The German experience
Consultation was something German officials emphasized when they testified Thursday via video conference before the House of Commons immigration committee.
Michael Blume, head of the Special Quota Project, said Germany also faced resistance from Kurdish officials and non-governmental organizations in the region.
Given that there are only 360,000–400,000 Yazidis left in the world, the Barzani government said it was loath to see migration.
“So, it was in their interest that we clearly restricted the number to emergency cases,” Blume said. “That was part of the agreement. We said: ‘OK, we’re concentrating on emergency cases and it’s 1,000.’ They agreed to that.They wouldn’t have agreed if we had taken 100,000, I think.”
No one at Global Affairs Canada would speak on the record Thursday, but an official in Minister’s Stéphane Dion’s office denied there has been an absence of consultation and said Kurdish authorities have shown “interest and willingness to learn more about our program.” Opposition-driven
ISIS labelled the Yazidis devil worshippers for their unique religious beliefs and targeted them for extermination. Their plight captured world attention in 2014 and prompted Western intervention when extremist forces cornered them on the slopes of Mount Sinjar.
What followed were mass killings, rapes and sexual slavery for thousands in the minority ethnic community. The United Nations labelled it a genocide, something the Canadian government was slow to acknowledge.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel spearheaded the motion through the House of Commons at the end of October to force the Liberals to accept survivors, many of them women and children who are living at internal refugee camps which dot the countryside outside Erbil.
The government voted in favour of the motion and Immigration Minister John McCallum dispatched a team to northern Iraq to work out the logistics but did not state how many refugees the government was willing to accept.
An official in McCallum’s office says the team spoke with UN relief staff in Erbil; their mandate was strictly technical, not diplomatic, and they likely didn’t have any high-level government-to-government contacts. Tough conditions
Bozani, who is a Yazidi, acknowledges life in the camps is difficult and some may want to leave because, he says, underfunding of the humanitarian effort is creating conditions where people would want to migrate.
Kurdish Yazidi mother with her child in refugees camp in Iraqi kurdistan. Photo: UNICEF
But presented with the opportunity to return to reconstructed homes, free of landmines and with security, Bozani said he believes the vast majority of the community would elect to stay.
“Those people want to go back to their regions,” he said.
The UN has repeatedly warned, ever since the offensive to retake Mosul got underway last month, that only 57 per cent of its emergency appeal budget for the region has been met.
That, Bozani said, is making conditions worse as winter approaches.
On the humanitarian front, an official at Global Affairs says Canada is doing its part already.
Stephen Salewicz, the director of international humanitarian assistance operations at the department, says Canada contributed $63.5 million this year.
“It’s a very significant amount of support to the UN and other humanitarian actors,” said Salewicz, who noted last summer the government committed to $150 million in relief efforts for the region over the next three years. “Canada is playing a significant role.”
He says the Canadian government has called on other nations to meet their pledges.
Two Kids: One Bright Future
The Road from Dohuk
Never on Wednesday: Laundry Day in Yezdinar
Homes in the Yezdinar Village
Red Cross Document
New Roof for the Sheep Pen
Mr. Qatou demonstrating the town water supply
Blackboard in Yezdinar Village school
Roast Duck, Yezidi-Style
“My children’s children are free…it was worth it.”
In a Child’s Eyes: Happiness Under a Rainbow Umbrella. A Yezidi Kurdish-Iraqi schoolgirl’s drawing shows her imagination of the world
The Yazidi believe that the founder of their religion, Sheikh Adi Ibn Musafir al Umawi, was a manifestation of Melek Taus, “the Peacock Angel”, the central figure of their faith. In their art and sculpture Melek Taus is depicted as peacock. The Yazidi are thought to be unique in their depiction of their primary god as a bird. Tucked away in a mountainous area in northern Iraq, the Yazidi maintain their traditions so shrouded in secrecy, that no outsiders have seen its most important rituals. In fact, few people besides Yazidi religious leaders have copies of the group’s holy books. Some of their opponents even swear, that their obscure faith derided by some as a religion of devil worship. This may well be one of the reasons, but certainly not the only one for the profound Muslim hatred for this strange obscure sect.
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