Iraq's Yazidis gather to remember the dead and missing, 10 years on from Islamic State genocide
Source: The Observer
Iraq’s Yazidis gather to remember the dead and missing, 10 years on from Islamic State genocide
A decade after thousands were killed or displaced, many in the remaining community are still living in refugee camps
Marta Bellingreri, Sinjar province, Iraq
Sat 3 Aug 2024 19.06 BST
Last modified on Sun 4 Aug 2024 02.31 BST
Saturday marked exactly 10 years since Islamic State (IS) entered Iraq’s Sinjar province, displacing, killing and enslaving hundreds of thousands of Yazidis. On Saturday morning, crowds gathered for a ceremony to remember victims of the genocide at the “grave of the mothers”, where 111 elderly women were shot dead or buried alive after being separated from their family members.
The ceremony at the mass grave near the Yazidi genocide memorial in Solagh began at 10am, when a minute’s silence was observed across the country. Traditional Yazidi songs were sung, and poems and witness testimonies were recited on the stage.
Shiren Ibrahim Ahmed, 24, from the village of Kojo, was among the thousands assembled. “They brought us, the women, from our village, in the institute here, and our mothers and grandmothers were then shot in this field,” she told the Observer. “We heard the sounds of guns, and we haven’t heard from them since then.” On the same day, Shiren was kidnapped and enslaved by IS.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/03/iraqs-yazidis-gather-to-remember-the-dead-and-missing-10-years-on-from-islamic-state-genocide
