Mr. Chair, honourable members of Parliament, ladies, and gentlemen, it's an honour for me to be here and to testify after a remarkable woman whom I have been with for the past seven months, and I see her tragedy every day. With every speech she gives, she gives some of her soul. She gives so many of her emotions to pass on the story of thousands of people like herself, thousands of children who become orphans, thousands of women who are enslaved; the story of men, like her own brother whom I met a week ago, who is still waiting for his wife who was taken by a militant from the Islamic State.
After listening to Nadia give this testimony that is so deep, it's hard to put my own testimony into words. In fact, I've been having a very hard time to put my own testimony into words for the past two years. I'm a geophysicist who came from Sinjar, who had a normal life in Houston, going to the University of Houston to receive an education. I received two master's degrees, in geophysics and engineering, and I wanted to have a normal life in the U.S., but that normal life changed in one moment. That normal life changed for me, for my family, and for every Yazidi on this planet.
What happened to the Yazidi people was a genocide, and the purpose of this genocide was to wipe the Yazidi people from the face of the planet. ISIS members said in Dabiq, their journal, that the purpose of this attack was to wipe out the Yazidis. In fact, they said that the existence of the Yazidis within the Muslim world was a shame on Islam, and that Muslims should have eradicated the Yazidis in the past.
A community of 700,000 people, a community that is more than 4,000 years old, coming from the history of Mesopotamia, of which we are all proud, the history of Babylon, the history of the Assyrians, a community whose heritage we all should be proud of, is now finding itself at a crossroads. When we say that we don't know what the future will look like for us, we indeed mean it. When we say that the Yazidis will probably be wiped out in 10 or 20 years, we mean it. The Yazidis had more than 200,000 people in Turkey and now there are only 300 families in Turkey. In Syria, we had 50,000 people, and now we have 3,000 people. In the Shekhan District, we had 200,000 or 300,000 people, and now we have 100,000 people. That's also for the city of Sinjar, where the majority basically systematically changed the demographics so the Yazidis would not have a homeland.
The ISIS attack on the Yazidis was the last straw, the last attack to wipe the Yazidis from the Middle East. It has been recognized by the United Nations. It has been recognized by other countries. It has been documented through my work, through all work. In Dohuk, we received more than 900 women like Nadia, and we have their accounts and they all faced the exact same thing that Nadia faced. In fact, Nadia was lucky compared to others. I met girls who were eight years old, who were raped. I met children who came back from captivity, who still pray the way the Daesh trained them to pray. Just a week ago, I met five beautiful women with their children, none of them older than seven, eight, or 10 years old, and they've all lost their husbands. Two of the girls, Gelan and Jihan, committed suicide in captivity. Two older children, Rizan and another one of their children, who were students at the medical school in Mosul, were killed when ISIS attacked.
What the Yazidis need from the world is a stand for humanity. The Yazidis must be seen as human beings, not seen as a distant community that must face this alone. I think for us as human beings looking at this tragedy and not doing anything is a shame on us, all of us.
This is what we would like Canada to do. First, we were surprised that the resolution that was put on the floor was objected to, that the genocide against the Yazidi people was not recognized in Parliament.
We were surprised that a country like Canada would not see our tragedy. It's very important to the thousands of people who survived that they get recognition from the Canadian people and the Canadian government. As Parliament is the voice of the Canadian people, we would like that resolution to pass. We would like that resolution to be reintroduced.
We are also here because we have thousands of people who put their lives at risk to immigrate. We would like Canada to have a quota for the Yazidis, between 5,000 and 10,000 people, who could immigrate to Canada. They are beautiful people. Trust me that they will contribute to the success and democracy of your country. They will be a good part of this country. You have about 2,000 to 3,000 Yazidis here in Canada, and they are integrated into the community in Canada.
We would like this quota to be especially for the victims, like the German program that brought in 1,100 women and girls who were victims of rape.
For people who are in Turkey now, waiting for the UN process is not a solution. The Yazidis, even when they are very lucky and have a few dollars to go to the interview, have to wait until 2022 to be interviewed for the first time through the UN system. Leaving the Yazidis in this situation is not the right solution.
We would like you to have a special quota of 5,000 to 10,000 people, sponsored by the Government of Canada, to allow the Yazidis to come. I think the Yazidis must be allowed to go to any country, exactly as the people of the Holocaust were. The world finally recognized their genocide and allowed them to come in.
Those are my two main points.
The last point is to help the Yazidi communities that stay in the camps. Help the Yazidi community refer its case to the International Criminal Court. We have asked the world to look into these crimes, to look into these mass graves, and there has still been no investigation. We would like Canada to take the lead on the ICC case, to take the lead on the documentation of the genocide, and to take the lead on immigration.
Thank you so much for your time.