Latest news with #Yazidi
Shafaq News
2 days ago
- Business
- Shafaq News
Eid al-Adha salary standoff: Kurds criticize Baghdad over unpaid wages
Shafaq News/ Kurdish officials criticized Baghdad's continued suspension of public sector salaries in the Kurdistan Region, as the standoff persists days before Eid al-Adha. During a child development forum, Kurdistan's Minister of Endowments and Religious Affairs, Pshtiwan Sadq, argued the dispute goes beyond payroll delays, accusing Baghdad of undermining constitutional rights. 'This is betrayal and injustice.' Meanwhile, Kurdish MP Mahma Khalil criticized the freeze at a Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)-led event distributing financial aid to Yazidi survivors of ISIS, remarking, 'Iraq supports other nations while neglecting its own citizens.' Their remarks followed a joint statement by 43 Kurdish parties denouncing the Finance Ministry's actions as unconstitutional. The statement came in response to Iraqi MP Raad al-Maliki's claim that the KRG had 'failed' to deliver its oil and non-oil revenues. The rift, rooted in ongoing disputes over oil exports and budget entitlements, deepened after the 2023 shutdown of the Kurdistan pipeline to Turkiye's Ceyhan port. Since then, Erbil has received only monthly advances, not its full budget allocation, fueling mistrust and complicating negotiations. Last week, the KRG Ministry of Finance urged Baghdad to resume payments for employees, pensioners, welfare recipients, and the families of martyrs, accusing federal authorities of using legal pretexts to delay disbursements.
Winnipeg Free Press
4 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Operation Ezra going strong
Ten years have passed since Michel Aziza met with Nafiya Naso, a young woman from Winnipeg's small Yazidi community, and offered to help her raise awareness about the plight of the Yazidi people in Iraq and arrange support for their sponsorship to Canada. The Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking ethnic minority who follow an ancient monotheistic religion that combines aspects of different faiths. Concentrated primarily in the Sinjar region of Northern Iraq, they have been the victims of persecution by their neighbours for generations. That persecution culminated in August 2014 when ISIS invaded the Sinjar region, displacing, killing, kidnapping and enslaving thousands of Yazidi men, women and children. Nafiya and her sister Jamileh Naso had arrived in Winnipeg as children when their parents were accepted to Canada as refugees in 1999, long before the events of that terrible summer. But when the sisters learned about the terror being wrought on the Yazidis remaining in Iraq, which included many of their extended family members, they were spurred into action. That action led Nafiya to her first of many meetings with Aziza and a small group of Jewish community members. 'We ended the meeting by agreeing to help rescue as many refugees as we could by raising funds and also helping Nafiya continue on with her advocacy work and her efforts to raise awareness,' Aziza explains. That agreement was formalized with the creation of an initiative called Operation Ezra. 'For me personally, it was simply an opportunity to do the right thing and help people who at the time were being persecuted,' Aziza says. 'I had always wondered how and why some people decided to help Jews during the Holocaust while others stood by. This was my opportunity to engage with another community with no other motive than to help.' Operation Ezra's first order of business was to complete the documentation and raise the funds to privately sponsor Nafiya's uncle, aunt and their six children to Canada. When that family descended the escalator at Winnipeg's airport in July 2016, Nafiya's father rushed to embrace his brother. They had not seen one another for 26 years! After making that initial reunion possible, Operation Ezra continued its fundraising and sponsorship efforts, reaching out in the process to other local faith communities for assistance in increasing awareness and financial support, completing sponsorship documentation, and, often after years of waiting, welcoming the newcomers to Winnipeg and helping with their resettlement. To date, Operation Ezra has privately sponsored 11 Yazidi families, representing 67 people, to Winnipeg, and has applications in process for another 20 people. 'Operation Ezra became one of the largest private rescue efforts for Yazidis in the world,' Jamileh says. 'Jews, Yazidis, Christians, and allies came together to save lives, reunite families, and help survivors rebuild. What began as a local sponsorship effort, quickly grew into a powerful, multi-faith movement rooted in justice, solidarity, and shared humanity.' That spirit of activism, Jamileh adds, led her to found the Canadian Yazidi Association as 'a survivor-led voice for the missing, the displaced, and the resilient.' In 2016, the Yazidi association and Operation Ezra successfully lobbied the Canadian government to establish its own rescue operation to bring Yazidis to Canada. 'The intense lobbying at the federal level,' Aziza explains, 'resulted into the sponsorship of approximately 1,200 Yazidis to Canada, 250 of whom came to Winnipeg.' Those 250 individuals, mostly women and children, were, and continue to be, supported by Operation Ezra in the same way as those who were privately sponsored by the group. Operation Ezra helped find housing and employment for the new arrivals, enrolled children in school, provided translators, organized adult English classes, ran a kids' soccer league, and developed innovative programs to enable the newcomers' integration and self-sufficiency. One of these programs is the Healing Farm, where Yazidi volunteers harvest thousands of kilograms of seasonal produce annually that they then distribute among their community and to local food banks. Most of the Yazidis who arrived in Winnipeg in the last decade have adapted well to Canada. They are working, studying, raising families, and volunteering, and are grateful for the safety and stability of their new home. For some, however, the terror and trauma of their past endures. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. 'I sit with mothers who haven't heard from their daughters in over a decade,' Jamileh says. 'I walk beside youth once held in ISIS captivity, now rediscovering their language and sense of self. I fight for access to culturally competent mental health care … and for justice that has been far too long denied.' With close to 3,000 Yazidis still considered missing and thousands more living in refugee camps, the work of Operation Ezra and the Canadian Yazidi Association is not done. 'We have a list of thousands of families who regularly reach out, pleading for help,' Nafiya says. A decade after Operation Ezra was created, Nafiya, Jamileh, Michel and the group's many other volunteers remain determined to rescue, reunite and resettle Yazidi refugees in Winnipeg — a city that has become a sanctuary for a long beleaguered people. swchisvin@ The Free Press is committed to covering faith in Manitoba. If you appreciate that coverage, help us do more! Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow us to deepen our reporting about faith in the province. Thanks! 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Iraqi News
6 days ago
- Health
- Iraqi News
The forgotten boys: ISIS's Yazidi child soldiers demand urgent global action and tailored healing
Washington D.C. ( – While the world rightly recoiled at the horrific enslavement of Yazidi women and girls by ISIS during its 2014 genocidal assault on Sinjar, Iraq, another profound atrocity has remained dangerously overlooked: the systematic militarization and indoctrination of Yazidi boys. A comprehensive report, 'They Who Have Seen Hell,' by Georgetown University's Center for Security Studies, now casts a stark light on these forgotten child soldiers, arguing that this neglect represents a failure to confront the full scope of ISIS's strategy to annihilate the Yazidi people and poses a ticking security and social time bomb. ISIS did not treat these boys as mere collateral damage. Instead, they were deliberately targeted, forcibly assimilated, and indoctrinated to perpetuate the genocide. Stripped of their names, language, and faith under threat of death, boys as young as seven were re-programmed through chanting ISIS slogans, and being taught that their Yazidi beliefs were devil worship. The aim was total identity erasure. As one 16-year-old survivor recounted being told: 'You are Yazidis and you are infidels. We want to convert you to the true religion so you can go to heaven.' The success of this brutal indoctrination is chillingly evident in accounts of rescued boys initially rejecting their families, unable to speak their native Kurmanji, or even viewing ISIS as their new family, as detailed in the report. The psychological and physical trauma inflicted is immense. Nearly 2,000 Yazidi children who escaped ISIS face an unprecedented health crisis. Clinical studies cited in the report found nearly half of former ISIS child soldiers (mostly Yazidi boys aged 8-14) met criteria for PTSD (48.3%), with similarly high rates for depression (45.6%) and anxiety disorders (45.8%). Many endured extreme violence, malnutrition, and war injuries, including lost limbs. Without robust, specialized support, experts like renowned clinical psychologist Jan Ilhan Kizilhan warn that untreated trauma can fuel future cycles of violence. Reintegration is a torturous path. These boys return as strangers to communities that may fear them as ticking time bombs. Compounding this, Iraq's 2021 Yazidi Survivors Law, while providing crucial reparations for female survivors, critically fails to meaningfully include boys in its eligibility or programming, leaving them largely excluded from state-sponsored psychological, educational, and reintegration aid. While girls faced horrific sexual slavery, boys were turned into instruments of violence, creating different but equally profound scars and distinct reintegration needs. The 'They Who Have Seen Hell' report issues urgent calls to action. Firstly, it demands the expansion of specialized, culturally sensitive, trauma-informed mental health services, like those provided by NGOs such as the Jiyan Foundation, to reach these children consistently. Secondly, deradicalization and identity restoration are presented as strategic imperatives, requiring tailored religious counseling by Yazidi leaders, community-led rituals, and an educational response that promotes critical thinking and reconnects them with their heritage. Most crucially, the report calls for legal recognition and justice through the amendment of the Yazidi Survivors Law. Its language must be changed to explicitly include male survivors, followed by creating mechanisms for their registration, assessment, and compensation via stipends, educational scholarships, or healthcare subsidies. Leaving this generation of deeply traumatized youth in an ideological limbo, alienated and unsupported, risks their permanent marginalization and could destabilize the fragile Yazidi community further. The international community and the Iraqi government must heed this call to transform these victims of terror into agents of recovery and resilience for a more stable future.
Shafaq News
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Shafaq News
Iraq pushes to locate Yazidi women taken to Syria by ISIS
Shafaq News/ Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said Tuesday that most Yazidi women abducted by ISIS in 2014 were taken to Syria, as Baghdad and Erbil step up efforts to locate and free those still missing. Speaking after a regional expert meeting on missing persons in Baghdad, Hussein noted that both federal and Kurdish authorities are sharing intelligence, particularly in light of recent developments in Syria that could aid the search. The meeting, attended by officials from the Kurdistan Region, focused on the legal and humanitarian challenges surrounding Iraq's missing persons file, one of the most pressing legacies of ISIS's campaign of violence. Zidan Khalaf, the Iraqi Prime Minister's advisor on human rights, said the government considers the issue a top priority. 'We are addressing one of the most painful humanitarian crises in Iraq,' he said. Khalaf highlighted ongoing work with national security, intelligence services, and the Yazidi Survivors Directorate to locate survivors and reunite them with their families. He added that financial rewards have been offered for credible information and that efforts continue to enforce the Yazidi
DW
19-05-2025
- DW
Germany updates: Extra border checks unsustainable — police – DW – 05/19/2025
Skip next section Iraqi couple to face trial in Germany over alleged IS crimes against Yazidi girls 05/19/2025 May 19, 2025 Iraqi couple to face trial in Germany over alleged IS crimes against Yazidi girls An Iraqi man and his wife, both accused of being so-called "Islamic State" (IS) militant group members and enslaving two Yazidi girls, are set to appear in court in Germany. The 43-year-old man and 29-year-old woman face charges at the Munich Higher Regional Court, including genocide, human trafficking, and crimes against humanity. Prosecutors say that in 2015, the man bought a 5-year-old Yazidi girl as a dowry for his wife, at her request. The child was allegedly held captive by the couple in Iraq and Syria for over two years, during which she was subjected to forced labour, sexual abuse, humiliation, and torture. In October 2017, the couple allegedly bought a second Yazidi girl, aged 12, who endured similar abuse. Both girls were later transferred to other IS members in November 2017. While the older girl was eventually freed after a ransom was paid, the fate of the younger child remains unknown. The couple were arrested in Bavaria in April 2024 and have been in custody since. IS aimed to establish a theocratic state under Sharia law during the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. German prosecutors argue the couple's actions were part of IS's systematic rape of Yazidi women and girls — a strategy designed to dismantle the group's continuity and identity. Germany has emerged as a key prosecutor of IS war crimes that took place in Iraq and Syria under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
