Kurdistan Parliament marks eighth anniversary of the Yazidi Genocide
The Kurdistan Parliament on 3 August 2022 remembered the victims of the 2014 Genocide against the Yazidi Kurds. Speaker Dr. Rewaz Faiq, Secretary Muna Kahveci, Yazidi representatives, survivors of the genocide and MPs attended the ceremony in the Parliament building.
The remembrance ceremony was attended by formerly abducted Yazidi women and girls freed from ISIS’s captivity, Dayka Daishem who lost 32 of her family members and relatives, Mayan Khairi Saeed wife of the Yazidi Mir (leader), MPS, the chief and deputy chief of Parliament’s Diwan (administration), Parliament advisers and staff.
Three survivors of the Genocide presented the Yazidi black cloth of Sinjar to Parliament’s Presidency, and the Speaker, Secretary and several others lit eight candles to honour the victims.
Yazidis performed laments and played the daf (Kurdish drum). A photography exhibition was opened by photographers Mahmoud Hawleri and Hussein Baadri, whose pictures conveyed the scale of the tragedy.
A minute’s silence was observed and Ms. Susan Mohammed Mirkhan, Chair of Parliament’s Committee on Martyrs, Genocide and Political Prisoners, read a speech on behalf of her own committee and the Kurdistani Areas Committee. Ms. Mirkhan called on the Iraqi Government to implement Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution, to fulfill its legal responsibility to compensate the survivors for the crimes committed against them, and to seriously work for the reconstruction of Sinjar and its surroundings.
The two committees’ remarks also stressed the Iraqi government's need to be committed to the agreements reached with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on the administration of the so-called disputed areas, and the return of IDPs to their homes.
They called for greater efforts to determine the fate of the 2,717 Yazidis who are still missing, help to free them and reunite them with their families.
They also stressed the need for justice to be done by putting on trial the leaders and fighters of the ISIS terrorist organization, in an international or national court, with the participation of the United Nations.
They called on the Kurdistan Regional Government to make more efforts to lobby internationally to determine the fate of the missing and try to return IDPs to Sinjar and its surrounding areas.
