Iraq’s Yazidis: Among the World’s Most Threatened Minorities © 2021 IAI by Antonella Caruso Pope Francis is scheduled to arrive makeup of the Middle East.1 Heretics in Iraq on 5 March 2021 for a historic deserving of execution in the eyes of ISSN 2532-6570 three-day visit. The Holy Father aims to extremist Islamists or devil worshippers promote a message of hope and support for many others, the brutal massacres of to thousands of Iraqi Christians who Yazidis in 2014 sparked an international have returned or are yet to return to outcry as well as the first US airstrikes their homes after the official defeat of in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) in and occupation of the country.2 December 2017. 1 Yazidis believe that God communicates to The first-ever Pontifical visit will also human beings through its divine emanations, or Angels. The first and highest in rank among include stops in Mosul and the Christian them is Malek Taws, or the Peacock Angel, enclave of Qaraqosh, in northern Iraq, wrongly identified as Satan, who completed in a province which has been ground the creation of the universe and governs it. zero for so much violence and ethnic The Angels assume also human forms and descend on earth across human history. and religious cleansing over the past The places of their appearance are holy and years. All minorities have suffered in shrines are built above them. Lalesh is the Iraq – but none as much as the Yazidis, most sacred temple, where Adam was born and Malek Taws descended. Belonging to this slaughtered by the thousands by IS sacred land is a strong feature of Yazidism. See militants. While other minorities have for instance, Avi Asher-Schapiro, “Who Are slowly returned home, the Yazidi future the Yazidis, the Ancient, Persecuted Religious Minority Struggling to Survive in Iraq?”, in remains bleaker than ever. National Geographic News, 11 August 2014, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/ Yazidism, a monotheistic faith of article/140809-iraq-yazidis-minority-isil- uncertain origins with elements from religion-history. 2 Islam, Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism, Liz Sly, “Exodus from the Mountain: Yazidis Flood into Iraq following U.S. Airstrikes”, in The occupies a unique place in the ethnic Washington Post, 10 August 2014, https://www. Antonella Caruso is founder of LAMEDINA Institute for International Dialogue, Los Angeles IAI COMMENTARIES 21 | 10 - MARCH 2021 21 | 10 - MARCH IAI COMMENTARIES and former Director of the Middle East and West Asia Division in the Department of Political Affairs of the United Nations. 1 Iraq’s Yazidis: Among the World’s Most Threatened Minorities The Yazidis continued to be massacred, to remain today.5 About one third live tortured, enslaved and displaced over in makeshift refugee camps, with the three years. The violence ended when hope of one day joining the ones who IS was defeated in 2017 by the combined have emigrated to Europe, Canada and onslaught of a US-led international the US. Others have either returned coalition along with the Iraqi army, home or have settled down in Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces and a vast cities, mainly Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan array of militias. The Yazidi genocide and Baghdad. Nearly 2,800 women are 6 © 2021 IAI “must never happen again”, Barham still missing. Salih, the Iraqi president, solemnly intoned at a recent official tribute in Recognition of their genocide from Baghdad for Yazidi victims whose the Iraqi government in November remains were discovered in Sinjar.3 2014 was an important step forward7 – but it is clear that weak Iraqi state The Yazidis, among the most fragile of institutions are failing the Yazidis and Middle Eastern minorities, are a litmus other minorities. Almost none of the test to understand if coexistence and Islamic State perpetrators of the Yazidi ISSN 2532-6570 diversity will have any role in a future genocide have been brought to justice. Iraq. This ethno-religious minority Security and reconstruction of Yazidi now risks disappearing. From a Yazidi villages should have been speeded population estimated at between up, together with the rehabilitation of 500,000 to 700,000 before 2014, of services and job creation. Instead, 60 to whom around half lived in the Shekhan 80 per cent of Sinjar city remains badly and Sinjar districts of the Nineveh damaged, as the Nineveh governor Governorate in northern Iraq,4 just Najim al-Jabouri denounced,8 and 60 over 300,000 Yazidi souls are thought per cent of its inhabitants unemployed. In the unpretentious rooms of the Iraqi washingtonpost.com/world/2014/08/10/f8349f2a- parliament in Baghdad, the law on 04da-4d60-98ef-85fe66c82002_story.html. Yazidi women survivors, that would 3 Iraqi Presidency, Iraqi President at Burial Ceremony for Yazidi Victims at Kocho: All Iraqis provide reparation and integration, Must Work Together to Create a Country Where has only now been passed, after close such Inhumane, Heinous Acts can Never Occur to two years of stalemate due to the Again, 6 February 2021, https://presidency.iq/ EN/Details.aspx?id=3204. 4 Yazidi population figures vary. See for 5 IOM Iraq Mission, Six Years After Yazidi instance, Peter Henne and Conrad Hackett, Genocide, Investment in Services is Crucial for “Iraqi Yazidis: Hazy Population Numbers Returning Yazidi Families, 16 July 2020, https:// and a History of Persecution”, in Fact Tank, iraq.iom.int/node/1507. 12 August 2014, https://www.pewresearch. 6 Sura Ali, “Baghdad Holds First Ceremony org/?p=262316; Otmar Oehring, Christians And for 104 Yazidi Victims of ISIS”, in Rudaw, 4 Yazidis in Iraq: Current Situation and Prospects, February 2021, https://www.rudaw.net/english/ Sankt Augustin/Berlin, Konrad-Adenauer- middleeast/iraq/040220214. Stiftung, 2017, https://d-nb.info/1141052792/34; 7 Nisan Ahmado, “Tracking Missing Yazidis Yazda website: Genocide Recognition, https:// Increasingly Harder Six Years After IS Genocide”, www.yazda.org/genocide-recognition. in VOA News, 8 August 2020, https://www. 8 Najim al-Jabouri, “Mosul Not Getting the voanews.com/extremism-watch/tracking- Funds Needed to Rebuild: Nineveh Governor”, missing-yazidis-increasingly-harder-six-years- in Rudaw, 9 October 2020, https://www.rudaw. after-genocide. net/english/interview/09102020. IAI COMMENTARIES 21 | 10 - MARCH 2021 21 | 10 - MARCH IAI COMMENTARIES 2 Iraq’s Yazidis: Among the World’s Most Threatened Minorities fractiousness of Iraqi political parties.9 on expelling the PKK from Iraq.10 This Arab-Kurdish effort aims primarily As if that were not enough, the security at appeasing Turkey and ultimately situation remains complex – and allowing a safe return of thousands menacing. Mount Sinjar, where much of Yazidi refugees to the district. of the Yazidi genocide took place, is Unsurprisingly, the agreement was strategically located along the border immediately rejected by the PKK – as with Syria, on lands that are disputed well as a number of pro-PKK Yazidi © 2021 IAI between the central Iraqi government militias and some of the Iraqi Popular and the Kurdish Regional Government. Mobilization Forces (PMFs). It has been a thoroughfare for the smuggling of weapons, goods and The implementation of the agreement fighters to and from war-torn Syria remains opaque, to say the least. for years – and the spill-over effects of In early December, Kurdish Prime the long Syrian civil war have deeply Minister Masrour Barzani declared that affected the security of the entire area. no forces had withdrawn from the city and from the district. Turkish military ISSN 2532-6570 Turkey’s on-going war against the incursions resumed along the Turkish- Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – which Iraqi border early this month. In are also embedded in Mount Sinjar – are response, Baghdad has now deployed making the situation worst. The Sinjar three PMFs brigades to Sinjar, in an district has been witnessing airstrikes effort to keep the Turkish army away by the US-led anti-IS international from the area and “combat terrorism”, as coalition forces, intra-Kurdish clashes, reported by the PMFs media directorate military confrontations between Iran- after the meeting of their leader Abd backed Iraqi militias and Kurdish armed al-Aziz al-Muhammadawi (himself on forces, the return of the Iraqi army and the US terrorist list) with Iraqi president federal police and, last but not least, Barham Salih on 17 February.11 intensified Turkish bombardment of PKK positions. The Turkish president has not hidden his intentions to use Iraqi soil in its fight A glimmer of hope occurred last against the PKK – with or without Iraqi October, with a landmark security approval – “until we crush the head of agreement between the central terrorism”, as Erdoğan emphatically government in Baghdad and the declared in mid-February.12 Turkey, autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq 10 “Content of the Baghdad-Erbil Agreement on Shingal”, in KirkukNow, 10 October 2020, 9 Kristin Smith and Sonali Dhawan, “‘Yazidi https://kirkuknow.com/en/news/63613. Female Survivors Law’ in Iraq Is Groundbreaking 11 But Not Enough”, in OpenGlobalRights, 13 Sura Ali, “President Salih Discusses October 2020, https://www.openglobalrights. Paramilitary Movement in Shingal, Kirkuk org/yazidi-female-survivors-law-in-iraq-is- with PMF Leader”, in Rudaw, 17 February 2021, groundbreaking-but-not-enough ; Sura Ali, https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/ “Iraqi Parliament Passess Yazidi Survival Bill iraq/17022021. after Years of Delays”, in Rudaw, 2 March 2021, 12 “Turkey’s Anti-Terror Operations Will https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/ Continue: Erdoğan”, in Hürriyet Daily News, 17 iraq/010320214. February 2021, https://www.hurriyetdailynews. IAI COMMENTARIES 21 | 10 - MARCH 2021 21 | 10 - MARCH IAI COMMENTARIES 3 Iraq’s Yazidis: Among the World’s Most Threatened Minorities after all, maintains some 20 “temporary” organisations, that promote a bottom- military bases in the country, despite up approach and strengthen civil regular Iraqi protests at the UN Security society.