Iraq: Government, society, militias, airstrikes target Yazidis

Ten years since the Islamic State (ISIS) invaded the Yazidi homeland in Iraq, Sinjar, the Yazidi genocide remains ongoing. Islamic jihadis continuously target Yazidis in Iraq as does the government, Iraq’s wider society, Islamic clerics, and Shia militias who are supported by Iran, as well as Turkish airstrikes.

On August 3, 2014, ISIS launched its genocidal attack against Yazidis in Sinjar, murdering or capturing nearly 10,000 Yazidis. They forced them to convert to Islam by threatening their lives. ISIS further enslaved and raped the women and girls. They brainwashed the boys, using them as suicide bombers, and executed the men. They sold the babies and toddlers to raise them as Muslim. This was the 74th recorded Yazidi genocide. Yazidis are a non-Muslim ethno-religious minority in Iraq.

To this day, ISIS still enslaves over 2,500 Yazidi women and children. Around 200,000 Yazidis remain internally displaced in Iraq, according to a 2024 UN migration report. There are still over 83 Yazidi mass graves waiting to be unearthed.

On February 22, 2025, the remains of 32 Yazidi Genocide victims were transferred from Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, to Sinjar. ISIS terrorists had dumped them in mass graves. The victims finally returned home, where they were laid to rest in a formal burial. “The slow exhumation process continues to delay justice. Closure cannot wait any longer,” noted the Free Yezidi Foundation (FYF).

The lack of justice for the Yazidi genocide victims and survivors remains a grave wound for Iraq’s Yazidis.

The United Nations Security Council, for instance, decided to close UNITAD, the primary international team responsible for collecting and analyzing evidence about the crimes ISIS committed in Iraq, in 2024. The Security Council further announced that another UN mission, UNAMI, which was established to provide human rights support, promotion of the rule of law, and the rehabilitation and protection of vulnerable communities (such as Yazidis), would be closed in December 2025.

Meanwhile, the still largely displaced Yazidi community faces pressure at the hands of the Iraqi government to return to Sinjar, even though they have received no security guarantees.

The ongoing displacement of Yazidis remains one of the community’s most serious challenges. Since the genocide, Yazidi survivors have feared returning to Sinjar, which is caught in the stranglehold of competing militias and airstrikes. They’ve remained in displacement camps within the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), where they are prone to fire and other hazards.

In January 2024, however, the Iraqi Council of Ministers announced the closure of the remaining 23 IDPs (internally displaced persons) camps by June 30. The government’s decision of closure — without guarantees of safety and assistance — of IDP camps has created further uncertainty among Yazidis. To this day, many Yazidis still live in those camps with exceedingly limited resources.

Although the 2021 Iraqi Yazidi Survivors Law offers compensation and rehabilitation, its full implementation remains incomplete. Further reparations are needed, especially for children born from sexual violence by ISIS members.

Meanwhile, trials against ISIS members are often limited to terrorism charges, with crimes against Yazidis inadequately addressed.

Yazidis are also exposed to systematic discrimination, given that the Yazidi political representation in Iraq is almost nonexistent. In 2022, the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court further limited the political representation of Yazidis, Shabaks, and Feyli Kurds by forcing those minorities to campaign within the already severely circumscribed Christian and Mandaean components.

In 2024, the total number of quota seats for religious and ethnic minorities in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) parliament in Iraq was reduced from 11 to 5, following a ruling by the Iraqi Supreme Court.

Last year, the Iran-backed Nineveh Provincial Council also dismissed 15 independent Christian and Yazidi government officials from important roles, sparking protests and legal action.

Islamic hate speech on social media remains another threat Yazidis often face. In 2023, for instance, Yazidis became the target of a campaign of hate speech and false accusations, which included rhetoric that condoned the crimes ISIS committed against them. The proliferation of hate speech on social media started after Yazidis were wrongly accused of burning a mosque in Sinjar during a peaceful demonstration against the return of those families affiliated with ISIS. Thousands of Iraqis reportedly made statements on social media, such as “ISIS was right about what they did to Yazidis” and “We should kill Yazidis. They are devil-worshippers.” Many local clerics in the Kurdistan Region also spewed hatred against the Yazidis during their Friday prayers. Videos posted on social media showed the Mullahs describing Yazidis as “kafirs” (infidels) and “devil-worshippers” and calling for their immediate arrest.

Further, many Muslim locals in Iraq have collaborated with ISIS or become part of militias that persecute religious minorities including Yazidis. This has greatly harmed the levels of trust Yazidis have for their Muslim neighbors.

Meanwhile, the presence of Iran-backed militias in Iraq makes it even more difficult for Yazidis to rebuild their lives. The Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) reportedly engage in verbal harassment and physical abuse at checkpoints, as well as in the cities and surrounding areas, which are controlled by PMF in the Nineveh Plains region.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) reported:

“The Iraqi Federal Government (IFG) did not bring under control the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU or PMF) or al-Hashd al-Shaabi, a government-affiliated umbrella organization of largely Shi’a Muslim, pro-Iran militias. These groups used checkpoint interrogations and detentions, enforced disappearance, extortion, and physical violence and targeted Sunni Muslims and other religious minorities, including Christians and Yazidis.

“The presence of armed groups and checkpoints in and around Sinjar and the Nineveh Plains, particularly from Iranian-backed PMF factions, have prevented religious and ethnic minorities from returning to their communities of origin. At checkpoints, PMF fighters demanded that IDPs and refugees, especially religious minorities, pay excessive amounts of money to cross or risk being sent back to the camps.”

These Iran-backed militias seek to alter the predominantly Yazidi demographics of Sinjar. According to the Iraq 2023 International Religious Freedom Report by the US Department of State,

“On February 6, Yezidi representatives reported that Iran-aligned militias maintained private real estate offices to buy Yezidi and Arab Sunni real estate and properties in order to change the demography of the Sinjar district in favor of Shia. Yezidi observers also accused Iran-backed militias and the PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] of using the Sinjar district as a passage for drugs and weapons through the Iraqi-Syrian border.”

Meanwhile, both Turkey and Iran have carried out airstrikes and – in Turkey’s case – even ground operations in various areas of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, with the declared goal of targeting PKK members. However, these attacks have hit Sinjar as well, causing severe damage to civilian property and forcing many Yazidis to flee, leading to the emptying of these communities. The recurrent Turkish airstrikes have further instilled fear among Yazidi communities, hindering their ability to rebuild and return.

Iraqi military forces also targeted religious minorities. A 2022 operation against Yazidi fighters displaced at least 3,000 Yazidi civilians. Further, in 2023, ISIS continued its attacks against Iraq’s civilians, infrastructure and security forces. This continued, albeit to a lesser extent, in 2024.

Other religious minorities facing persecution and discrimination in Iraq include the Kakai, Sabaean-Mandaeans, Bahai, Zoroastrians, Shabak, and Jews. According to a 2024 USCIRF report on Iraq, many of these minority groups are displaced and struggle to return and rebuild their homes, even after the military defeat of the ISIS caliphate in Iraq.

When Islamic forces massacre and persecute Christians in the Middle East, some Western analysts and politicians falsely blame it on so-called “Western Christian imperialism” or colonialism, failing to understand the motivated Islamic doctrine that determines the treatment of non-Muslims. Yazidis are not Christian. They are stateless, defenseless and have had very limited historical ties with Western countries. They seek peaceful coexistence with the rest of the world. If so-called “Western imperialism” is responsible for the Muslim persecution of Eastern Christians, why have Islamic groups violently targeted, massacred, persecuted, enslaved, displaced, and forcibly converted Yazidis throughout the centuries?