USCIRF Commemorates the Ninth Anniversary of the Yazidi Genocide

Washington, D.C. – The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) this week joined communities around the world in commemorating the ninth anniversary of the Yazidi Genocide perpetrated in Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).  

"USCIRF commemorates this solemn week in the history of the Yazidi people, who suffered mass atrocities during ISIS’s campaign of ethnic and religious cleansing,”  USCIRF Commissioner Stephen Schneck said. “As we honor the thousands of lives lost to the genocide, USCIRF remains deeply concerned for the human rights and religious freedom of the survivors. USCIRF urges the U.S. government to support a multilateral approach to end the continued attacks on Sinjar and to actively work toward the safe return and resettlement of traumatized Yazidi communities.”

ISIS launched the Yazidi Genocide in 2014, targeting Iraq’s Yazidi minority for mass execution, mass rape, systematic sexual slavery and forced labor, and forced religious conversion. Although the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS— which includes the United States—and its local partners liberated all territory controlled by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Yazidis in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere remain targets for harassment and discrimination by a variety of armed militant groups including remnants of ISIS. Sinjar remains destabilized, contributing to hundreds of thousands of genocide survivors languishing in displacement camps throughout Iraq and Syria. In July 2023, a group of Yazidi civil society organizations and community leaders called for the Iraqi government to administer a dedicated fund for the reconstruction of public infrastructure and private housing in the Sinjar district.

“Iraqi Yazidis’ homeland Sinjar has been torn apart by the continued violence of power-seeking militias, severe inadequacies in infrastructure, and military attacks from both the Iraqi and foreign governments. Thousands of Yazidi women and girls are still missing following their reported abductions, sex trafficking, and enslavement,” USCIRF Commissioner Frank Wolf said. “The United States must urge both the Iraqi federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government to fully implement the Sinjar Agreement, in consultation with Yazidis and other religious minorities, to help end this ongoing suffering.”

USCIRF’s 2023 Annual Report, January 2023 Factsheet on Iraq, and Spotlight podcast episode highlighted continued threats against Iraq’s Yazidis and made recommendations to the U.S. government to support the human rights and religious freedom of the Yazidi people.

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The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the U.S. Congress to monitor, analyze, and report on religious freedom abroad. USCIRF makes foreign policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress intended to deter religious persecution and promote freedom of religion and belief. To interview a commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected].