11-05-2025
Witness to horror: Yazidi survivor's harrowing ISIS testimony
Shafaq News/ An Iraqi court heard the testimony of a Yazidi woman survivor as part of international legal proceedings against a suspected ISIS member, the National Center for International Judicial Cooperation announced on Sunday.
The woman testified via video link on May 7 before the Karkh First Investigation Court in Baghdad in a case involving Murat Deringani, an alleged ISIS fighter accused of war crimes and severe human rights violations during his time with the group in Iraq and Syria.
Judicial records identified the witness as a victim of kidnapping, enslavement, and sexual abuse by a militant known as 'Abu Yahya al-Almani,' who faces additional charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
In August 2014, ISIS militants overran the Yazidi-majority district of Sinjar in northern Iraq, killing thousands and capturing women and girls. The United Nations later recognized the attack as genocide.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces retook the area in November 2015. However, according to the US State Department, over 2,600 Yazidi women and girls remain missing, while efforts to identify victims from mass graves continue. Fewer than 700 sets of remains have been exhumed, and only 243 have been identified and returned to families.
Iraqi authorities have documented 93 mass graves attributed to ISIS crimes against Yazidis, while the United Nations estimates that more than 200 mass graves left by ISIS across Iraq could contain the remains of up to 12,000 individuals.
