The Yazidi genocide — 10 years later
On August 3, 2014, thousands of Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists from some 80 countries invaded the ancestral homeland of the Yazidi/Ezidi peoples in Shingal Province in Western Iraq. This invasion turned into a three-year genocidal rampage, continuing from that day until the Islamic State terrorists were vanquished in 2017. Sadly, this was not the first time that the Yazidi people had been attacked.
The Muslim Ottomans during their reign in Iraq completed multiple genocides against the Yazidis. The world community ignored the cries of the Yazidis, and their cries continue to be ignored to this very day.
In 2014, the total number of Yazidi men killed, according to UN data, was 5,000. Over 6,000 girls and women were taken as sex slaves, sold, and traded by ISIS for money and packs of cigarettes. Over 2,000 girls and women are still being held, some captive for 10 years, now being held in squalor refugee camps in Northeastern Syria. Gender-based sexual violence toward these kind and gentle people contains stories that are unspeakable. In multiple rapes, girls as young as 8 years old are subjected to systematic sexual violence, rape, torture and brutality. Multiple women took their own lives, not wanting to be taken as a sex slave by these barbaric jihadists. The demonic practices foisted upon these girls and women have been painfully documented by international organizations.
On August 3, 2014, when I, along with the rest of the world, heard about the thousands of Yazidis trapped on top of their ancestral Mt. Shingal, I began to pray about how to respond. Through being a guest on WABC radio one Sunday morning with my friend Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, I connected with the founder of the Yazda organization, Mr. Murad Ismael. We both traveled to Erbil in December 2014, and we began a journey of meeting with young women who had escaped the clutches of ISIS and are now suffering from PTSD and CPTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder) and living in abandoned buildings in and around Dohuk. Women delivering babies on the side of the road in makeshift tents made out of sticks and plastic bags to shelter them from the harsh winter of December 2014.
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Through my NGO, WidowsAndOrphans.info, I traveled to Dohuk in April 2024. My Yazidi colleague, an elected member of the Nineveh Provincial Council, invited me to a home program where a group of young women between the ages of 20-30 were all violated by ISIS. In this safe house, each of the 12 women was being trained in areas where they could begin businesses of sewing/altering, cosmetics, hair care, or food preparation. As I concluded the tour of what they were learning, I asked to meet with the director and all the women. I asked each of the women what they wanted to do with their life and all the women said that they wanted to start a business.
Seventy-one percent of all Yazidis since 2014 have been displaced from their ancient homeland of Shingal. Five thousand Yazidis are still internally displaced in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The world community has ignored the Yazidis’ 10 years ago; the ignorance continues even now.
Come with me to Iraq and assist the Yazidis in the midst of their tragic plight and let us make a difference while the world community remains silent. The Yazidis are still internally displaced; their homeland is insecure and overrun with Iran and Iraqi militias. The Yazidis say, “We have no future in Iraq; where can we go?” You can begin to help them, even today. As the adage goes: “If not now, then when? And, if not me, then who?”
Dr. William Devlin is co-pastor of the Infinity Bible Church in the South Bronx, New York, and national president of REDEEM! — an organization committed to assisting persecuted people and groups in America and around the globe. PB enlisted in the Navy in 1970 and received the Purple Heart after being wounded by enemy fire off the coast of North Vietnam. He holds several degrees, including master of arts in religion from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He and wife Nancy have five children and four grandchildren.
