Barzani Receives Yezidi Girls Who Survived IS

 Kurdish leader and the president of leading Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Masoud Barzani, received on Monday dozens of Kurdish Yezidi girls who survived the Islamic State (IS) slavery, calling them “a symbol of honor”.

Secretary of Kurdistan Women Union, the Director-General of Yezidi Affairs in the Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs, and a Yezidi member of the Kurdistan Region Parliament briefed Barzani on the current situation of the Yezidi survivors and the ongoing efforts to find and rescue the missing Yezidis.

According to the statistics revealed during the meeting, 3,476 Yezidi women, men, and children, out of 6,417, have so far been rescued. Concerning the Yezidi women, the statistics shows that a total of 3,548 women and young girls were abducted by IS, from which 1,184 were freed and reunited with their families.

The survivors explained about the ordeals they were subjected to and they noted that the jihadist group traded them as “slaves” which has left them with physical and psychological trauma.

Barzani said each and every Yezidi girl is the “a symbol of honor” in Kurdistan, and that the brutality of IS was an extension to the previous oppressions against the people of Kurdistan.

“What happened to our Yezidi sisters and brothers, was an extension to the previous tragedies against our people, including the Anfal campaign which buried alive more than 182,000 people, the chemical attack on Halabja, massacre of 12,000 Fayili youths, and killing of 8,000 Barzanis,” the Kurdish leader said.

“The adversity which you experienced renewed all the pains our people had suffered in the past,” Barzani added, noting that, however, the Peshmerga forces of Kurdistan retaliated for what IS did against the Yezidis, and crashed the jihadists.

He promised that they will work so the parliament and the government of Kurdistan Region will fully meet the demands of the Yezidis for a deserving life.

Concerning the current situation in Sinjar, Barzani said the Yezidi region should be ruled by the Yezidis themselves, and that the current imposed rule in the area is not acceptable.