First of all, I would like to thank you so much for inviting me to this presentation. I also would like to thank all of the committee members for attending to hear what's going on against the Yazidi people.
My presentation is going to include some picture displays, so you can have a better idea of what the Yazidis are going through. Also, my information is all from our people working on the ground in northern Iraq.
Mr. Chair, thank you so much, and committee members. I'm honoured to be here today to make a presentation about the Yazidi people, who have suffered enough under the control of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria since August 3, 2014. I'm going to tell you a little about who and what the Yazidis are.
The Yazidis are an ancient and proud people from the heart of Mesopotamia, the birthplace of civilization and the birthplace of many of the world's religions. The Yazidi religion is monotheistic and very peaceful. Yazidism is not a missionary religion. Therefore, the religion and the ethnicity are both combined into one that is called Yazidi. We believe in one God without companions, God's seven archangels, and the four main natural elements: the sun, the earth, the wind, and water.
We respect all religions and faiths, and when we help others, it is without regard to faith or nationality. We pray to God and ask him each morning for an end to war and peace for the whole world. We say our name, Yazidi, at the very last. Unfortunately, radical Muslims have been trying to wipe us off the face of the earth. For the last 1,400 years, the Yazidis have faced 74 genocides in the Middle East, including the ongoing genocide by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, which began on August 3, 2014, just because we have a different culture, religion, and way of life.
Most of you are aware of the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Islamic State that have been committed against the Yazidis and Chaldo-Assyrian Christians in northern Iraq and Syria. The Yazidis in Sinjar have suffered especially, and the Yazidis of Kocho village in particular.
More than 5,000 Yazidis were killed, including the beheading of hundreds. There are presently about 430,000 Yazidis displaced in northern Iraq, including 3,953 Yazidi orphans in IDP camps. According to the escaped Yazidi girls I met in northern Iraq, the ISIS militia abducted 7,450 Yazidis, mostly young women and children. Since then, more than half of those abducted Yazidis have managed to escape, and with the help of some of the outsiders, about 200 elders were also released in 2015. However, more than 3,200 Yazidis are still held in ISIS captivity in Iraq and Syria.
The young girls and women have been subjected to sexual slavery from the first day of the attack until now. They are being sold and bought by different militia, by different Muslims in the Middle East region. The young Yazidi boys are being trained to be jihadists and suicide bombers.
In all respects, it is a genocidal campaign against the Yazidis and Chaldo-Assyrian Christians that began on August 3, 2014. We are very grateful that Canada, the EU, the U.S., and UN have recognized that what ISIS has done against the Yazidis is genocide. Now we believe the international community has legal obligations to make sure that genocide against the Yazidis never happens again, as this is the 74th genocide we are facing, and it is still going on as I speak.
Some of you may ask how other groups in the Nineveh have coped with the Islamic State invasion. Sadly, the majority have joined ISIS. The local Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen quickly joined up with ISIS at the time of the attack. They killed, abducted, raped, and tortured the Yazidis, and they looted the Yazidi properties, from jewellery and household items to farm equipment and automobiles.
Humanitarian aid, while necessary, is not sufficient. Much humanitarian aid distributed by the Kurdish regional authorities never gets into the hands of those who need it, due to skimming, corruption, and politics. Recently, Masoud Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, and Khairi Bozani have opposed the Canadian plan to bring Yazidis to Canada, saying that they don't want the Yazidis to leave Kurdistan. Well, Mr. Bozani is director of Yazidi affairs in the KRG. He is a member of the PDK, the political party, and has been given that position by Barzani. He says only what he is told to say. He doesn't represent the Yazidis.
Since then, I have received hundreds of phone calls from displaced Yazidis asking and urging Canada not to listen to someone who has been bought by a political party and works only for its interest. The displaced Yazidis do not belong to Kurdistan. The displaced Yazidis belong to their ancient homeland: Sinjar, Shekhan, and the Nineveh plain.
Why did Barzani and his cohorts collect Yazidis' and Chaldo-Assyrian Christians' weapons 50 to 60 days prior to the ISIS attack? The KRG had more than 11,000 of armed militia in the Sinjar region on the eve of the ISIS attack against the Yazidis. Desperate, the Yazidis tried to flee to the mountains for safety, but the KRG militia prevented them. What was Barzani's reason for not allowing the Yazidis to flee to the mountains for safety, other than collaborating with ISIS?
When the KRG militia began withdrawing to the Kurdish region, the Yazidi men followed and begged them for weapons, but the KRG refused to give any weapons to the Yazidi men, who were ready to fight against ISIS. Why did Barzani refuse to give weapons to the Yazidis to fight ISIS? In fact, the KRG militia killed many of those Yazidi men, in different areas in the Sinjar region, who asked for weapons.
We, the Canadian Yazidis and the human rights organization, raise our voices on behalf of our silenced Yazidi people in the Middle East, whose cries you cannot hear, whose tears you cannot see, and whose unbearable suffering you cannot imagine here in the west. Our voice has been pierced by a bullet. The Yazidi women, men, and children have been forced into conversion, tortured, beaten, raped, and sold into sexual slavery. While our government has a foot on the ground in Iraq to destroy ISIS, I am urgently asking each and all of you to ask our Canadian government to intervene in rescuing women, girls, and children, who have suffered more than enough under the ISIS sharia law presently in Iraq and Syria. We, the Canadian Yazidis, are asking for equality and equal rights for the displaced Yazidis in northern Iraq, especially the orphans and the Yazidi girls who have escaped from ISIS, and the Yazidi refugees in Turkey, Syria, Greece, and Jordan.
Our demands are that the Canadian government work with other allies, such as the U.S., the U.K., and the EU, to create an autonomous region for the Yazidis and Chaldo-Assyrian Christians in Sinjar, the Nineveh plain region, and Hassakeh under international protection. As of two years ago, the KRG has not been able to protect us in many ways, and what evidence and video I have, I am willing to share with whoever wants to see it. They didn't protect us; in fact, they collaborated with ISIS, killed Yazidis, and handed them over to ISIS.
Bring in 7,000 to 10,000 Yazidis from IDP camps in northern Iraq, with priority to be given first to escaped Yazidi girls from ISIS with their remaining family members. The second priority should be orphans of both or either parents; third, families whose family members were killed by ISIS; and fourth, displaced Yazidis who have relatives in Canada.
Bring in 23,000 to 25,000 Yazidi refugees from Turkey, Syria, Greece, and Jordan as quickly as possible.
Germany took in more than 1,000 escaped Yazidi girls, and this is greatly appreciated, but in some cases the KRG and some affiliated Yazidis were involved. For example, Khairi Bozani, Mahama Khalil, and Sheikh Shamo have been bought by the KRG, and tell the world whatever the KRG tells them to say. As a result, 241 got into Germany. According to the displaced people we talked to, they were never abducted by ISIS, and many of them were not even from the areas that were attacked by ISIS. We hope our Canadian government does not make the same mistake of ignoring the real victims, while others benefit instead due to political interests.
To this end, we must insist that the following Canadian organizations be a part of the processing in this project of bringing Yazidis to Canada, to make sure similar mistakes don't happen: Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International, Project Abraham through the Mozuud Freedom Foundation, One Free World International, Canadian Jews and Friends of Yezidis, Samaritan's Purse Canada, and the Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq, CYCI.
We beseech our government to take immediate action to rescue more than 3,200 abducted Yazidi who are still in ISIS captivity in ISIS-controlled areas, and to bring them here so that they can live as human beings with dignity while ISIS is in the process of being defeated. We cannot lose our abducted Yazidis who have been in captivity for more than two years. From our side, we are ready to help in every way possible upon our government's request.
I received several phone calls recently. About a month ago, ISIS members in the city of Mosul chose 150 Yazidi girls—those who are beautiful and blonde—and transferred them to Qatar and Saudi Arabia for the king and prince's family via Jordan.
Recently, about 100 to 125 from Tal Afar have been transferred to Baaj, which is 34 kilometres out of Sinjar. About 200 have been transferred from Mosul to Syria. The Iraqi government and the KRG are in control of the Iraqi border, so how are these people able to transfer those escaped Yazidi girls outside of Iraq? We hope that Canada can monitor and be a leading force there, so as not to let that happen and to save the Yazidi people.
In the name of humanity, we are asking each and every one of you to do whatever you can to save these innocent souls. I am here and ready for any questions you may have. Thank you so much.
