Thank you, Mr. Chair, for having me here.
My name is Reverend Majed El Shafie. I'm founder and president of One Free World International for human rights. Our focus is the freedom of religion around the world.
I used to be a prisoner back home in Egypt before I came here to Canada. I was a refugee. So the work I do is not just a job. It's my life.
I visited Iraq twice, once in September 2011 and once in September this year. I had members in the Canadian Parliament—Mr. Brad Butt, Mr. Russ Hiebert, and Mr. Leon Benoit—as observers. They came with me on the trip. We visited Kurdistan; we visited the front line, Erbil; and Dohuk. We visited three refugee camps—a Christian refugee camp, a Yezidi refugee camp, and a mixed refugee camp with Christians, Yezidis, Muslims, and other different minorities.
What we saw was that right now, as we're talking, there are over 1.6 million refugees and displaced persons. As for the situation on the ground, we witnessed what we believe is the beginning of a genocide. People from the Christian minority, from the Yezidis minority, are being killed, massacred, and crucified. Their families are being hunted down and they are given very few options; basically, convert or die.
One story that touched my heart was about little girl by the name of Rahma, 14 years old, who witnessed both her parents being killed in front of her. Another story was about a Yezidi mother who was stuck on top of the Sinjar mountains. In order to save her baby, because there was no food or water, she had to cut her finger to feed her baby her own blood. We heard from witnesses, from women, that many of them had been sold for $20 in the market. We interviewed some of these women who had been rescued after they had been raped and tortured.
The two main things that we found are really needed right now are medication and housing. Of course, in the winter it's very hard right now with the rain and the strong wind. Tents will not solve the problem. The two main needs that we found were basically housing and medication.
Mr. Chair, I'm aware that we are now at eight minutes, and that instead of ten minutes the opening remarks are eight minutes. I'm trying to speed up my statement.
I'm wondering if it's eight minutes in Canadian time or Egyptian time—but that's another story.