YEZIDI GENOCIDE Diana Elias HISTORY OF THE YEZIDI

YEZIDI GENOCIDE Diana Elias

HISTORY OF THE YEZIDI PEOPLE • Yezidis are Kurdish speaking people. • The Yezidi people are congregated largely in northern Iraq, many in or near the city of Sinjar • We have our own religion • This religion is the oldest sustained religion in the world • For centuries, my religion has been the target of hatred.

BELIEFS • Yezidis believe in one God ( Tawusî Melek). • (tawusi Melek: (is an angel who defies God and serves as an intermediary between man and the divine. ) • Taus Melek is the primary figure in the Yezidi belief system. • In the face of years of religious persecution, many Yezidis have strongholds that are often located in mountain regions.

PRACTICES § My people pray facing the sun at sunrise, noon, and sunset. § Wednesday is the holy day. § Yezidi people don’t marry outside of the Yezidi religion. § There is a caste system of murids, sheikhs, and pirs who marry within their own group.

YEZIDI PERSECUTION • In 2007, four trucks were driven by ISIS members into Sinjar (primarily a Yezidi city of just under 90, 000 in northern Iraq), to reconnoiter for an attack. • In the ensuing confrontation: • 500 Yezidi lost their lives. • 200 were injured • 200 Yezidi children lost their parents, and became orphans.

YEZIDI PERSECUTION • Yezidis’ have been the target of Islamic attacks for centuries. • There have been 74 major attacks on the Yezidis since the seventh century A. D. • August 3, 2014 was the worst day for the Yezidis in recent memory, the day ISIS commenced to pillage villages and murder Yezidis by the thousands in the Sinjar region. • 7, 000 Yezidi women were kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery. • My sister and my grandmother were that day, but they escaped…

AFTER THE ATTACK OF 2014 • Many Yezidis fled to Kurdish territory in Turkey, northern Iraq and Syria. • Others were isolated in the Sinjar mountains and waited to be rescued. • A large number who escaped the area, ended up primarily in Germany but also in Sweden, Turkey, and the United States. • There is a relatively large Yezidi community here in Lincoln – around 1, 000.