Yazidi genocide survivors in Iraq recall horrors of Daesh’s siege of Kocho

A soldier inspects the remains of members of the Yazidi minority killed by Daesh in a mass grave in Sinjar. (AFP)
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Updated 14 August 2024
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Yazidi genocide survivors in Iraq recall horrors of Daesh’s siege of Kocho

  • Daesh militants launched a genocidal campaign against the ethno-religious minority in their Iraqi homeland in August 2014
  • Kocho, uniquely among the 80-plus Yazidi villages in Sinjar, was subjected to a 12-day siege before the slaughter began

LONDON: For 12 days in August 2014, the lives of the inhabitants of the Yazidi village of Kocho hung in a fearful balance.

In the early hours of Aug. 3, Daesh fighters had swept west from Mosul, attacking the town of Sinjar and the dozens of Yazidi villages scattered to the south of Mount Sinjar in the Nineveh Governorate of northern Iraq.

The approximately 1,200 residents of Kocho were woken at about 2 a.m. by the sound of gunfire coming from surrounding villages. At any moment, they feared, their turn would come.

It would, indeed, come, and in the most brutal fashion. But Kocho would experience a fate unique among the suffering of the 80-plus Yazidi villages in the region.




Ten years on from the massacres, 200,000 Yazidis remain in those camps, refugees in their own country, unable or afraid to return to their ruined homes.

For reasons that remain largely unclear to this day, Daesh commanders chose to keep the surrounded villagers of Kocho suspended between hope and fear for almost two dreadful weeks.

And on Aug. 15, 2014, 10 years ago this week, hope gave way to horror.

The Yazidis, an ethno-religious minority indigenous to northern Iraq and parts of Syria and Turkiye, had suffered centuries of persecution, but nothing on the scale of what they were about to experience.

The leadership of the so-called caliphate that had been proclaimed two months earlier by Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi regarded the Yazidis as infidels, and in August 2014, their objective was nothing less than genocide.

Thousands of men, women and children would be murdered, their bodies thrown into dozens of hastily dug mass graves scattered across a wide area.

More than 6,000 women and young girls were taken into slavery and subjected to physical and sexual abuse. Ten years on, 2,600 remain missing.

Driven from their homes, survivors sought sanctuary first on the barren heights of Mount Sinjar, where many young children would die from dehydration, and later in the camps for internally displaced persons that sprang up in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Ten years on from the massacres, 200,000 Yazidis remain in those camps, refugees in their own country, unable or afraid to return to their ruined homes.

But in Kocho, a small village 15 km south of Sinjar, things were different — at first.




Daesh fighters attacked the town of Sinjar and the dozens of Yazidi villages scattered to the south of Mount Sinjar in the Nineveh Governorate, Iraq. (AFP)

On the morning of the attack, a unit of the Peshmerga, the army of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region that was stationed in the village school, fled the village in the face of the Daesh advance. It was a similar story across Sinjar.

A couple hundred residents of Kocho left at the same time as their supposed defenders, hoping to reach the relative safety of Mount Sinjar to the north. Some made it. Others were captured en route.

What happened next reflected one of the lesser-known tragedies of the genocidal attack by Daesh on the Yazidis.

There is a general perception that the Daesh fighters who swept through Sinjar in 2014 were all foreigners, mainly overseas volunteers who had flocked to Syria in answer to Daesh’s murderous call.

In fact, far from being foreigners, or even strangers, many of the Daesh fighters who would commit such terrible crimes against the Yazidis were their neighbors.

“It’s hard to have accurate statistics,” said Natia Navrouzov, a Georgia-born Yazidi and lawyer who headed up Yazda’s legal advocacy efforts and documentation project, gathering evidence of Daesh crimes, and is now the nongovernmental organization’s executive director.

“But in terms of what survivors have described in the testimonies we have collected, they often say that Daesh members came mainly from Al-Ba’aj, which is a region under Sinjar, and then a lot of neighbors joined.”

The town of Al-Ba’aj is barely 20 km to the southwest of Kocho.




The Yazidis, an ethno-religious minority indigenous to northern Iraq and parts of Syria and Turkiye, had suffered centuries of persecution. (AFP)

Although many of the Daesh attackers wore masks, when Yazda was collecting testimonies, “survivors were able to identify them really clearly by name, based on their tribes and on their dialects, because the accent they were speaking with was clearly from a certain tribe or village in Sinjar.

“When it comes to foreign fighters, they were mainly present in Raqqa in Syria, and the Daesh attacks on Yazidis in Sinjar in the first days were really locally led.”

Many of the Yazidis also had economic and social relations with the neighbors who turned against them.

“We have testimonies of survivors who say that even before Aug. 3, they already felt some movement from these neighbors, who were looting their belongings or were watching them.

“Some neighbors even called some of the Yazidi people they knew and liked to tell them, ‘You should go because something’s going to happen.’ But I think the Yazidis just didn’t realize that it would be a genocide; they just thought something political was happening.”

The worst betrayal came at the hands of people who had been intimately involved with Yazidi families.




More than 6,000 women and young girls were taken into slavery and subjected to physical and sexual abuse. (AFP)

“There were social connections,” said Navrouzov. “For example, when a Yazidi child is born, they get an equivalent of the Western godfather, called a ‘kreef.’  The kreef is often an Arab. A lot of Yazidis had these almost family connections with their neighbors, and yet even those people attacked them.”

It should not, said Navrouzov, have come as a great surprise, “because in the past, we have often been attacked by our neighbors,” motivated by enduring misconceptions about the faith of the Yazidis, including that they are devil worshippers — a lie exploited by Daesh propaganda.

Yet even now, “10 years after the genocide, and with all this documentation we have gathered and the advocacy work we and others have done, a lot of people in Iraqi society still think that we are exaggerating, that Daesh did not commit the crimes that we are describing.”

Worse than such denial, “some people still think that what Daesh did was right because the ideology behind it is so deeply rooted in the society.”




Thousands of Iraqis flee from the town of Sinjar. (AFP)

According to some reports, the leader of the Daesh attack on Kocho may have been a local man, initially hesitant to carry out the orders from above. Others think local kreefs may have intervened to try to have the village spared.

Either way, Kocho, uniquely among the 80-plus Yazidi villages in the area that were simply overrun, was subjected to a 12-day siege.

“The devastating thing is that the village was surrounded for about two weeks, from Aug. 3 until Aug. 15,” said Abid Shamdeen, who was studying in the US at the University of Nebraska at the time and helped to mobilize support among the Yazidi diaspora.

“We knew that Daesh had killed the men that they captured on Aug. 3, and that in other villages, they had taken women and children into captivity.

“We were communicating with US officials, with Iraqi officials and Kurdish officials, trying to communicate the message that Daesh will commit a massacre in Kocho. But they didn’t get any help.”

Daesh had first entered the village, delivering its usual ultimatum — convert to Islam or die — on Aug. 3. But over the next 12 days, the Daesh commander, “Abu Hamza,” sat down for a series of negotiations with village leaders, including headman Sheikh Ahmed Jasso.

Whatever the reason for the 12 days of reprieve, on Aug. 15, 2014, the talking ended and the remaining 1,200 inhabitants of Kocho were herded into the village school.

What happened next was described in distressing detail in the book, “The Last Girl — My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State,” by Nadia Murad.

At the school, the men and boys deemed to be adolescents were separated from the women, loaded onto trucks and driven away to be murdered. In all, 600 people died, including six of Murad’s brothers and half-brothers. The women in the school could hear the gunshots that killed their sons, brothers and husbands.

Dozens of older women who were considered too old to be sold as sex slaves were also killed, including Murad’s mother, Shami.




A Yazidi child refugee at Delal Refugee Camp in Zakho. (Getty Images)

The fate that awaited Murad and many other young women from Kocho, including underage girls, was sexual slavery. They were driven to Mosul and sold to Daesh fighters and supporters. In all, an estimated 3,000 Yazidi women were enslaved.

Murad’s ordeal continued until November 2014, when she managed to escape her captor, found her way to a camp for displaced people and from there applied successfully to become a refugee in Germany, where she arrived in 2014.

She went on to found the NGO Nadia’s Initiative and, for her “efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict,” in 2018 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The dreadful story of the genocidal Daesh attack on the Yazidis, the battle for justice and the search for the missing that continues a decade later, is told in an Arab News Minority Report, published online here.

 

The Yazidi nightmare
Ten years after the genocide, their torment continues

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Egypt’s foreign minister visits Moscow to strengthen ties

Updated 7 sec ago
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Egypt’s foreign minister visits Moscow to strengthen ties

  • Badr Abdelatty emphasized the importance of strengthening investment and trade relations between the two countries
  • Abdelatty also met with several representatives of the Egyptian community in the Russian Federation

CAIRO: Badr Abdelatty, Egypt’s minister of foreign affairs, visited Moscow intending to strengthen relations between the two countries.

Abdelatty’s visit included discussions with senior Russian officials to advance bilateral cooperation and exchange views on various issues of common interest.

On the first day of his visit, Abdelatty visited the Egyptian Embassy in Moscow and met staff from the diplomatic mission and various technical offices.

He also met with several representatives of the Egyptian community in the Russian Federation during his visit to Moscow.

Tamim Khallaf, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that Abdelatty emphasized the state’s commitment to safeguarding the interests of Egyptians abroad during his meeting with representatives of the Egyptian community in Russia.

He reviewed Egypt’s foreign policy perspective on regional challenges and crises, highlighting the ministry’s focus on supporting the national economy, attracting investments, and increasing development projects. 

The minister also listened to the community representatives’ views and suggestions, noting their important role in strengthening the strong ties between the two countries.

Abdelatty highlighted the importance of providing the highest level of care in delivering all services to visitors at the mission, whether Egyptian citizens or foreigners, in the most efficient and timely manner.

He met Anton Alikhanov, Russian minister of industry and trade. During the meeting they discussed the latest developments related to joint development projects.

Abdelatty emphasized the importance of strengthening investment and trade relations between the two countries in various fields and working to facilitate the increase of Egyptian exports to Russia. 


First Palestinian ambassador to Spain submits credentials

Updated 16 min 59 sec ago
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First Palestinian ambassador to Spain submits credentials

  • King Felipe VI welcomed Housni Abdel Wahed to the royal palace in Madrid
  • Spain along with Ireland and Norway have formally recognized a Palestinian state

MADRID: The first Palestinian ambassador to Spain presented his credentials on Monday to Spanish King Felipe VI after Madrid in May formally recognized a Palestinian state.
The head of state welcomed Husni Abdel Wahed to the royal palace in Madrid for the traditional ceremony for newly appointed foreign ambassadors to Spain, according to images published by the royal palace on social network X.
Wahed had been the head of the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Madrid since 2022 and he enjoyed a similar status to that of an ambassador but he officially changed rank after Spain along with Ireland and Norway formally recognized a Palestinian state comprising the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The three countries said at the time they hoped their decision would spur other European countries to follow suit and accelerate efforts toward securing a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
Israel has condemned the decision, saying it bolsters Hamas, the militant Islamist group that led the October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war in the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, one of the staunchest critics in Europe of Israel’s Gaza offensive, announced earlier this month that a bilateral summit between Spain and Palestine would be held before the end of the year.
The October 7 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 97 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has so far killed at least 41,226 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.


Iran’s president says direct talks with US possible if it abandons its hostility

Updated 44 min 56 sec ago
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Iran’s president says direct talks with US possible if it abandons its hostility

  • “We are not hostile toward the US, they should end their hostility toward us by showing their goodwill in practice,” said Pezeshkian
  • He also said Tehran has not sent hypersonic missiles to Yemen’s Houthis, a day after the Iran-backed group said a missile it fired at Israel was a hypersonic one

DUBAI: Iran could hold direct talks with the United States if Washington demonstrates “in practice” that it is not hostile to the Islamic Republic, President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Monday.
Pezeshkian was responding to a question at a news conference in Tehran on whether Tehran would be open to direct talks with the US to revive a 2015 nuclear deal.
Former US president Donald Trump reneged on that deal in 2018, arguing it was too generous to Tehran, and restored harsh US sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to gradually violate the agreement’s nuclear limits.
“We are not hostile toward the US, they should end their hostility toward us by showing their goodwill in practice,” said Pezeshkian, adding: “We are brothers with the Americans as well.”
After taking office in January 2021, US President Joe Biden tried to negotiate a revival of the nuclear pact under which Iran had restricted its nuclear program in return for relief from US, European Union and UN sanctions.
However, Tehran refused to directly negotiate with Washington and worked mainly through European or Arab intermediaries.
He also said Tehran has not sent hypersonic missiles to Yemen’s Houthis, a day after the Iran-backed group said a missile it fired at Israel was a hypersonic one.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would inflict a “heavy price” on the Houthis who control northern Yemen, after they reached central Israel with a missile on Sunday for the first time.
“It takes a person a week to travel to Yemen (from Iran), how could this missile have gotten there? We don’t have such missiles to provide to Yemen,” Pezeshkian said.
However, last year Iran presented what it described as Tehran’s first domestically made hypersonic ballistic missile, with state media publishing pictures of the missile named “Fattah” at a ceremony.


Israeli minister says time running out for diplomatic solution with Hezbollah in Lebanon

Updated 16 September 2024
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Israeli minister says time running out for diplomatic solution with Hezbollah in Lebanon

  • “The possibility for an agreed framework in the northern arena is running out,” Gallant told Austin in a phone call
  • As long as Hezbollah continued to tie itself to the Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been engaged for almost a year, “the trajectory is clear,” he said

JERUSALEM: Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday that the window was closing for a diplomatic solution to the standoff with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in southern Lebanon.
Gallant’s remarks came as the White House Special envoy Amos Hochstein visited Israel to discuss the crisis on the northern border where Israeli troops have been exchanging missile fire with Hezbollah forces for months.
“The possibility for an agreed framework in the northern arena is running out,” Gallant told Austin in a phone call, according to a statement from his office.
As long as Hezbollah continued to tie itself to the Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been engaged for almost a year, “the trajectory is clear,” he said.
The visit by Hochstein, who is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, comes amid efforts to find a diplomatic path out of the crisis, which has forced tens of thousands on both sides of the border to leave their homes.
On Monday, Israeli media reported that the head of the army’s northern command had recommended a rapid border operation to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon.
While the war in Gaza has been Israel’s main focus since the attack by Hamas-led gunmen on Oct. 7 last year, the precarious situation in the north has fueled fears of a regional conflict that could drag in the United States and Iran.
A missile barrage by Hezbollah the day after Oct. 7 opened the latest phase of conflict and since then there have been daily exchanges of rockets, artillery fire and missiles, with Israeli jets striking deep into Lebanese territory.
Hezbollah has said it does not seek a wider war at present but would fight if Israel launched one.
Israeli officials have said for months that Israel cannot accept the clearance of its northern border areas indefinitely but while troops remain committed to Gaza, there have also been questions about the military’s readiness for an invasion of southern Lebanon.
However, some of the hard-line members of the Israeli government have been pressing for action and on Monday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a longtime foe of Gallant, called for him to be sacked.
“We need a decision in the north and Gallant is not the right person to lead it,” he said in a statement on the social media platform X.
Hundreds of Hezbollah fighters and dozens of Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed in the exchanges of fire, which have left communities on both sides of the border as virtual ghost towns.
The two sides came close to all-out war last month after Israeli forces killed a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut in retaliation for a missile strike that killed 12 youngsters in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
On Monday, Israel’s defense ministry said it had approved the distribution of 9,000 automatic rifles to civilian rapid response units in northern Israel and the Golan Heights.


UNRWA chief: Gaza polio vaccination coverage has reached 90 percent

Updated 16 September 2024
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UNRWA chief: Gaza polio vaccination coverage has reached 90 percent

  • More than 446,000 Palestinian children in central and south Gaza were vaccinated

GAZA: Polio vaccination coverage in Gaza has reached 90 percent, the head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency said on Monday, adding that the next step was to ensure hundreds of thousands of children got a second dose at the end of the month.
The campaign to vaccinate some 640,000 children in Gaza under 10 years of age against polio, which began on Sept. 1, presented major challenges to UNRWA and its partners due to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
It followed confirmation by the World Health Organization (WHO) last month that a baby had been partially paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the Palestinian territory in 25 years.
More than 446,000 Palestinian children in central and south Gaza were vaccinated earlier this month before a campaign to vaccinate a final 200,000 children in north Gaza began on September 10 despite access restrictions, evacuation orders and shortages of fuel.
The first round of the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza ended successfully, UNRWA’s chief Philippe Lazzarini said, adding that 90 percent of the enclave’s children had received a first dose.
“Parties to the conflict have largely respected the different required “humanitarian pauses” showing that when there is a political will, assistance can be provided without disruption. Our next challenge is to provide children with their second dose at the end of September,” he wrote on X.
Israel began its military campaign in Gaza on Oct. 7 last year after Hamas led a shock incursion into southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
The resulting assault on Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s health ministry, and reduced much of the territory to rubble.