President Barzani, Nadia Murad discuss missing Yazidis

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani received Yazidi activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad on Tuesday, discussing the members of the ethnoreligious group who have gone missing since the Islamic State (ISIS) attack in 2014.

“Today I met with Yezidi Activist Nadia Murad. We discussed the thousands of still missing Yezidis and [the] importance of coordinating rescue efforts. We also spoke about the situation in Sinjar, and her efforts to help survivors of genocide,” said Barzani in a tweet.  

Thousands of Yazidis were killed when ISIS, which considers the minority group to be heretics, tore through Shingal (Sinjar) and other parts of northern and western Iraq in 2014. The bodies of many of those killed still lie in mass graves.

Nearly 7,000 Yazidi women and girls were enslaved and held in sexual slavery. Nearly half of these people remain missing despite ongoing efforts to find them. Recently, a number of them were found by Kurdish forces in northeast Syria (Rojava). 

Murad, who is one of the survivors, said in a tweet later on Tuesday that she looks forward “to working with you [Barzani] on the critical issue of still missing Yazidis to end the prolonged suffering of all those who continue to endure modern day slavery.”

Thousands of Yazidis have been displaced to the Kurdistan Region. The presence of armed groups vying for control of the strategic area has also been cited as a factor preventing Yazidis from returning home in Shingal.