Ezidi 24 – Sinjar
Translation: Khalid Qasim
After continued demands and many discussions, the International Organization for Migration (IOM-Iraq) concluded to have Solagh village as location for constructing a memorial site representing the Yazidi genocide in Sinjar district, northwestern Iraq. This Genocide was committed by ISIS terrorists groups on August 3, 2014 against Yazidis.
IOM-Iraq announced today the start of work on the monument, which will be implemented by Nadia’s Initiative (NI) and with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Notably, this site has been selected carefully due to close proximity of this location to the one of the mass graves exhumed. Moreover, the fact that it is located at the entrance of the city of Sinjar, so that visitors can observe it and attract them to know more about the Yazidi genocide.
According to the statistics of the Yazidi Abductees Rescue Office in Duhok, the number of Yazidis in Iraq was about 550,000. Currently, there are 135,860 displaced Yazidis living in camps of the Kurdistan region, while the number of displaced people outside the camps in separate areas is 189,337 IDPs. The Yazidi genocide has caused more than 5,000 martyrs and 2,745 orphans.
The responsible authorities discovered 83 mass graves in Sinjar district, in addition to dozens of individual grave sites. There are 29 who survived from these mass graves. Additionally, ISIS destroyed up to 68 Yazidi shrines and holy sites while as a result of the ISIS invasion 120,000 Yazidis emigrated outside Iraq. 6,417 Yazidis were kidnapped by ISIS, of which of them 3,548 were females and 2,869 were males while only 3,562 of them survived/rescued till today
