We remember and mourn with the Yezidis

“With every step, we rally together with our global brothers and sisters to reshape a world where everyone belongs.” Tim Buxton, You Belong founder.

Today we rally together and stand with our brothers and sisters of the Yezidi community in Australia and throughout the world to mourn the loss of loved ones who, in August 2014, were savagely taken from their homes and families in a massacre of unfathomable proportions. The age-old adage, “mourn with those who mourn” [1], has never been more apt as we extend our condolences to those whose hearts have been broken and lives left empty.

This day, 3rd August 2014, marks the anniversary of one of the worst atrocities of recent times, officially recognised by the United Nations and many individual states as genocide. On 3rd August 2014, Islamic State unleashed unprovoked violent attacks against the Yezidi community in Sinjar, northern Iraq, executing some 5,000 men and taking an estimated 7,000 women and girls into slavery. [2] Survivors have reported that girls as young as nine have been forced into sexual slavery - treated as public property, sold, passed around and held against their will.

The 2014 assault led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Yezidis (now estimated to be almost 2 million) who live in officially organised camps or informal settlements where there are inadequate provisions for daily living. Health services are expensive and difficult to access, as are electricity and clean water. Children are not receiving an adequate education and there are few opportunities to earn a living. Many are traumatised and have succumbed to hopelessness, depression, grief and despair. Surviving Yezidis still do not know the fate of their loved ones.

Thousands are still missing and the remains of victims have yet to be exhumed from mass graves. The grief is enormous!

To all Yezidis wherever you are in the world, we see you and sympathise with your pain. We pray for your healing and hope that the strength and tenacity inherent in the human spirit will urge you forward.

Yezidis fleeing Sinjar, Iraq, in 2014. New York Times

Tens of thousands of members of Iraq’s Yezidi religious minority are now living in shelters and camps.

GETTY IMAGES On 3 August 2014, fighters of the IS group swept through the area (Sinjar) with great violence.

Personal stories and further information about the Yazidi genocide of 2014 can be found at the following:

https://youbelong.org.au/blog/kamals-story

https://youbelong.org.au/blog/2021/2/22/rach-carter-stands-is-solidarity-with-yezidi-refugees-after-loved-ones-are-identified-in-mass-graves-t74g9-xrlzh

https://youbelong.org.au/blog/2021/2/5/saying-goodbye-from-afar-d9ncp-2lj5w

https://youbelong.org.au/blog/2021/2/5/saying-goodbye-from-afar-d9ncp-2lj5w

https://youbelong.org.au/blog/2020/2/16/g26kyhrh2megfdwsnn0479z93upt2u-8dl7c-tdeb8

https://youbelong.org.au/blog/2019/2/5/condolences-to-the-yezidi-people-srcx5-f77gx

[1] Bible: Romans 12:15

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Yazidis_by_the_Islamic_State