More than a decade after the brutal ISIS genocide, the Yazidi community in Iraq continues to grapple with the devastating aftermath, with thousands still missing and mass graves yet to be excavated, an official told The National on Tuesday.
In August 2014, ISIS extremists captured Sinjar, the ancestral homeland of Yazidis, and surrounding villages, taking thousands captive and slaughtering thousands of others. Some Yazidis fled to Mount Sinjar, where many were flown to safety by the US-backed Iraqi forces.
More than 5,000 Yazidis were killed by ISIS, leaving behind 2,745 orphaned children, said Hussein Qaidi, head of the Office of Rescuing Abducted Yazidis, which is linked to Kurdistan Region Presidency, as he released the latest statistics to The National.
The militants also abducted 6,417 Yazidi women and men, many of whom were subjected to sexual slavery and forced labour, Mr Qaidi said. Of those, only 3,585 were rescued: 1,211 women, 339 men, 1,074 girls and 961 boys, he added.
So far, 93 mass graves of Yazidis killed between 2014 and 2017 have been exhumed in Sinjar, but there are still dozens more. The remains of 274 Yazidis – 237 men and 37 women – have been recovered and returned to their families.
“Our efforts will continue until the last abductee, male or female, is freed,” Mr Qaidi said. “Our duty is to rescue the Yazidi abductees by any means necessary,” he added. The abductees are not only in Iraq and Syria, he said, but refused to name the other countries. Last month, a 33-year-old woman was freed from a foreign country and reunited with her family, and more are to be released “in the coming days”.
For centuries, the Yazidis – who follow an ancient monotheistic religion – lived in the mountains in north-west Iraq where their ancestral villages, temples and shrines are located. They say discrimination and second-class treatment by governments and society has turned them into a closed community.
In March 2021, the Iraqi parliament approved a law that recognised the crimes committed by ISIS against Yazidi, Christian and Shiite Shabak and Turkmen minorities as genocide and crimes against humanity.
The Yazidi Female Survivors Law aims to provide “compensation, financially and morally” and to “secure a decent life” for survivors through rehabilitation and care.
It covers compensation and reforms for survivors, including monthly payments, the provision of medical and psychological care, the granting of residential land, the right to education without restrictions on age, as well as prioritising survivors for public sector employment.
The law also states that the government will continue to search for those still in captivity, co-ordinate the identification of bodies in mass graves and ensure that perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity are held accountable.
In December 2017, Iraqis declared victory after a gruelling war with ISIS in which thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. Entire towns and neighbourhoods were reduced to rubble in the fighting in northern and western Iraq. ISIS has lost virtually all the territory it held in mid-2014 but still carries out sporadic attacks within Iraq and also has a presence in Syria.
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Who is Mohammed Al Halbousi?
The new speaker of Iraq’s parliament Mohammed Al Halbousi is the youngest person ever to serve in the role.
The 37-year-old was born in Al Garmah in Anbar and studied civil engineering in Baghdad before going into business. His development company Al Hadeed undertook reconstruction contracts rebuilding parts of Fallujah’s infrastructure.
He entered parliament in 2014 and served as a member of the human rights and finance committees until 2017. In August last year he was appointed governor of Anbar, a role in which he has struggled to secure funding to provide services in the war-damaged province and to secure the withdrawal of Shia militias. He relinquished the post when he was sworn in as a member of parliament on September 3.
He is a member of the Al Hal Sunni-based political party and the Sunni-led Coalition of Iraqi Forces, which is Iraq’s largest Sunni alliance with 37 seats from the May 12 election.
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Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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