COMMON ANALYSIS
Last updated: June 2022
COI summary
[Targeting 2022, 4.3, 4.3.1, 4.3.2, 4.3.3; Security 2022, 1.3.1, 2.6.4]
The Yazidis are a minority ethnoreligious group autochthonous to the governorate of Ninewa. Estimates on the Yazidi population differ significantly and vary from fewer than 300 000 in the entire world to about 700 000 in northern Iraq alone. Prior to the presence of ISIL in 2014, the largest Yazidi community (approximately 400 000 people) resided in the area of Mount Sinjar in Ninewa. Yazidis identify first by religion and then by ethnicity. The majority of Yazidis in Sinjar speak Arabic, with Kurdish more or less relegated to the status of a domestic language. The private as well as the official language in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, in contrast, is Kurdish.
In May 2021, the UN investigation team concluded that the crimes committed by ISIL, during its rule, against the Yazidis constituted a genocide. Thousands of Yazidis were killed or abducted by ISIL. In October 2021, it was reported that the number of Yazidis ISIL killed remained unknown, and discoveries of mass graves continued. Yazidi woman and girls suffered rape, torture, and slavery under ISIL captivity and were forced to marry ISIL members. Younger boys faced indoctrination, beating and torture by ISIL and commonly forcibly became child soldiers. Children were denied schooling and compelled to abandon their Yazidi faith by adopting Islam. In September 2021, it was reported that in total 2 763 Yazidis women and children remained missing. The KRG continued efforts to support and fund the rescue of captured Yazidis, although reimbursement payments were delayed or not made at all. It was reported that almost none of the ISIL perpetrators of the Yazidi genocide has been brought to justice.
In 2021, around 200 000 Yazidis remained displaced, most of them living in camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It has been reported that living conditions in the camps are difficult and poverty in the camps has worsened, which in turn has led to higher numbers of suicides, domestic violence, and child abandonment. Many of the women and children formerly held in ISIL captivity, were pregnant as a result of rape, forced marriage, and sex trafficking; these women and girls, including IDPs, remain highly vulnerable to various forms of exploitation, including re-trafficking.
In the KRG, Yazidis reportedly faced discrimination if they did not identify as Kurdish, as only those Yazidis who identified publicly as Kurdish could obtain senior positions in the KRI leadership. A number of religious minority communities, including the Yazidis have reported cases of discrimination from KRG authorities in territories claimed by both the central government and KRG, particularly in relation to land and property disputes.
Most Yazidis are unable to return to Iraq’s Sinjar district due to lack of services, security issues and bureaucratic hurdles. In April 2021, it was reported that Yazidi people living in the camps in Duhok widely believed that the Sinjar district was still not a safe place to return due to PKK’s presence. Since ISIL was defeated in Sinjar in 2015, the PKK has reportedly kidnapped hundreds of Yazidi children with the aim of recruiting them, 70 of whom are still missing. In April 2021, it was reported that Yazidis were prevented from returning home to Sinjar region by the PKK. In addition, an incident was reported in which Yazidis abducted by the PKK were later tortured by members of the PKK. Moreover, there are reports that the Yazidis faced challenges by the PMF upon their return. Although some Yazidis returned after the liberation operations, the PMF forces reportedly refused to give up the farms under the pretext of using them to combat ISIL cells.
Yazidi women that suffered repeated rape were, after giving birth, forced to abandon their children in orphanages in Syria or Iraq to be allowed to re-join the Yazidi community, or were compelled to register their children as Muslim in order to obtain identification documents and access to governmental services. Despite the fact that Yazidi religious leaders declared that ISIL-abducted survivors were to be respected, in practice, this is not always the case in the Yazidi community. Sexual violence against the members of the Yazidi community continues to be underreported owing to the fear of reprisals, stigma, absence of services and ongoing security concerns. Displacement camps constitute sites of heightened risk. On 1 March 2021, the Iraqi parliament passed a new law, the Yazidi Survivors Bill with the goal to assist female survivors of the ISIL atrocities. With regards to compensation, the bill provides for, among other assistance, a monthly salary, a plot of land or housing unit, support to re-enter school, and access to psychosocial and other health services. See also the sections on 2.17.7 Children born under ISIL who lack civil documentation under the profile 2.17 Children.
The YBS (Sinjar Resistance Unit) Yazidi militia, whose ranks have been joined by PKK fighters, is officially part of the PMF [Security 2022, 1.3.1]. For more information about the violation of human rights perpetrated by the PMF, please refer to 2.8 Members of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), Peshmerga and local police.
Risk analysis
The acts to which individuals under this profile could be exposed are of such severe nature that they would amount to persecution (e.g. harassment, detention, physical assaults, sexual abuse, killings, extortion, arbitrary arrests, kidnappings). In other cases, individuals could be exposed to (solely) discriminatory measures, and the individual assessment of whether discrimination could amount to persecution should take into account the severity and/or repetitiveness of the acts or whether they occur as an accumulation of various measures.
Not all individuals under this profile would face the level of risk required to establish a well-founded fear of persecution. The individual assessment of whether there is a reasonable degree of likelihood for the applicant to face persecution should take into account risk-impacting circumstances, such as: area of origin (e.g. Yazidis in areas where ISIL continues to operate), (lack of) identity documents, gender, etc.
Nexus to a reason for persecution
Available information indicates that persecution of this profile is highly likely to be for reasons of religion, race and/or nationality.
Exclusion considerations could be relevant to this sub-profile, in particular in the case of members of Yazidi militia (see the chapter 6. Exclusion).
See other topics concerning minorities: