Ten years of ongoing genocide against the Yazidis

A complex national and transnational challenge

Longread

Picture: The central towers of the biggest Yazidi holy shrine, Laliş. Photo by Leyla Ferman

In this story

Who are the Yazidis?
The historical background of the genocide
The ongoing genocide
A community struggling to survive
The future of the Yazidis

Who are the Yazidis?

A community of suffering

‘Ferman e’ (‘It is a genocide’)

The historical background of the genocide

72 genocides: attempts to exterminate the Yazidis under Ottoman rule

The relationship between Yazidis and Kurds

The founding of the new state of Iraq and the Baath regime

The new political order and radical Islamisation in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein

The new Iraqi Constitution and minorities

Sinjar, a disputed area

Map showing the location of Sinjar. Copyright: Yazda.

The ongoing genocide

The beginning of the 74th Ferman

IS interests in the Yazidis and Sinjar

Gender-based violence

Destruction of cultural heritage

Yazidi men sitting at the destroyed Mam Raşan shrine the day before the beginning of the reconstruction.
© Sifian Badel Alias, Project FERMAN 2021-2023, Lower Saxony Memorial Foundation

Mass graves

Yazidi women grieving at the cemetery in Koço. © Faris Mişko, Project FERMAN 2021-2023, Lower Saxony Memorial Foundation

Collective trauma

A community struggling to survive

Mourning and remembrance

Replica of DShK at the top of Mount Sinjar, to commemorate the fighting against IS © Leyla Ferman

Justice and reparations in Iraq

Living conditions in Sinjar

Yazidi self-organisation

Yazidi Survivor Najlaa Matto, who was enslaved by IS for eight months, speaking at the conference on the ‘Commemoration of the 15-Year Anniversary of the Establishment of the Mandate on Sexual Violence in Conflict’ in New York, October 2024. © UN Photo

State responsibility: the UN Genocide Convention

Publication of the YJC's report on state responsibility and the Yazidi Genocide with Baroness Helena Kennedy, July 2022, UK parliament. © YJC

The global dimensions of IS

IS stamp on a document. Text: Province (Wilaya) of Nineveh/Sector Aljazeera; court of justice. © Survivor

Case study: Nadine K.

International actors, states and legal accountability

Local militias and regional tensions

On 3 August 2022, YBŞ commemorated the events of August 2014 at the ‘14’ sculpture in Til Ezêr village. © Faris Mişko. Project FERMAN 2021-2023, Lower Saxony Memorial Foundation

Migration and Yazidi refugees

Yazidi refugee camp in Beşiri, Turkey. © Buhar Özden

Voice of Ezidis for the Truth of Genocide (VETO-G), a week-long vigil in front of the Bundestag, 2024. © Voice of Ezidis

Diverse forms of remembrance in Europe

Workshop in Germany with female Yazidi survivors from Sinjar, 2022. © Project FERMAN 2021-2023, Lower Saxony Memorial Foundation

The future of the Yazidis

Literature list

Abbreviations

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