Shafaq News/ The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has successfullyliberated approximately 3,600 Yazidi hostages, both men and women, from theclutches of ISIS since the commencement of specialized rescue operations,according to Dinar Zebari, the KRG Coordinator of International Advocacy, onTuesday.
Speaking at a conference in Erbil marking the 76th anniversary of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights, Zebari emphasized the government’songoing efforts to rescue the Yazidi victims. “The Kurdistan RegionalGovernment remains committed to saving the Yazidis who were taken captive byISIS, and we continue to make progress. So far, we have rescued 3,579 Yazidis,”Zebari said.
The KRG has also announced plans to distribute financial aid to over3,500 Yazidis who have managed to escape ISIS captivity.
The atrocities began in August 2014 when ISIS launched a brutal attackon Sinjar, a predominantly Yazidi region, committing mass atrocities andgenocidal crimes. In November 2015, the Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmergaforces, supported by the US-led Global Coalition, expelled ISIS from theregion.
By August 2017, the Iraqi government declared the expulsion of ISIS fromNineveh province. Despite these military successes, the situation for theYazidis remains grim.
The US State Department reported in August that ISIS killed and enslavedthousands of Yazidis, and over 2,600 Yazidi women and girls remain missing. Theidentification of bodies found in mass graves continues, with more than 200gravesites suspected of containing Yazidi remains.
The United Nations estimates that ISIS left behind over 200 mass gravesacross Iraq, potentially containing the remains of approximately 12,000 people.
As of July, Iraqi authorities have identified 93 mass graves believed tohold Yazidi victims' remains, with 32 still unopened in Sinjar and Baajdistricts. While remains of fewer than 700 Yazidis have been exhumed, only 243have been identified and returned to their families.
In addition, despite Iraq's rapid strides toward closing displacementcamps and executing ISIS perpetrators, many Yazidis remain hesitant to returnto their ancestral homeland due to ongoing security concerns in Sinjar.Thousands still reside in displacement camps across the region.