Ezidi’s in Irak eisen bij de verkiezingen van 11 november meer dan één quota-zetel. Met de Ezidi Cause Alliance streven ze naar bredere vertegenwoordiging, politieke erkenning en de wederopbouw van Shingal na jaren van ontheemding en onderdrukking.
More than a decade after ISIS destroyed Shingal, Germany is urging Iraq to speed up reconstruction of the Ezidi homeland. Despite new laws and aid projects, most Ezidis remain displaced, and rebuilding has stalled amid political tensions and insecurity.
The documentary “Hawar, Our Banished Children” exposes the hidden trauma of Ezidi women raped by ISIS, who now search for the children born from these assaults. With 3,000 women still missing, the film highlights ongoing genocide, the rejection of these children by the Ezidi people, and the first European trials of jihadists for these crimes.
Nearly 300 long-forgotten photographs of the Ezidi people, taken in northern Iraq during the 1930s, have been rediscovered in an American museum archive. The images, showing weddings, shrines, and daily life, offer a rare glimpse into Ezidi heritage nearly erased by ISIS, and are now being shared with Ezidis in Iraq and across the diaspora.
Duhok FC removed the sacred Ezidi sun symbol from their new shirt under pressure from Islamist voices. Eleven years after the 2014 genocide, hatred and cultural erasure persist, and the Ezidi identity is still denied recognition.
Iraq has begun the long-delayed excavation of the Khasfa mass grave near Mosul, a vast sinkhole where ISIS executed and buried thousands during its rule. Believed to hold at least 4,000 victims — including Ezidis, soldiers, and civilians — the site is one of the largest and most complex in modern Iraqi history. Forensic teams face immense challenges, but the work offers families of the missing a fragile hope for answers and dignity after more than a decade of silence.
On 12 August 2025, the remains of 22 Ezidi victims of ISIS were returned to Sinjar for burial following DNA identification in Baghdad. This marks the seventh official handover since 2021, as authorities continue to exhume and identify victims from mass graves across the region. The process underscores the scale of the atrocities committed during ISIS’s 2014 assault and the ongoing efforts to allow families to bury their loved ones according to Ezidi tradition and the faith of Sharfadin.
On August 3, 2014, the Ezidi people of Sinjar were targeted for extermination by ISIS. Thousands were killed, enslaved, and displaced. The genocide aimed to erase not only lives, but identity, culture, and the ancient faith of Sharfadin.
Eleven years later, justice remains out of reach. Sinjar is still unsafe. Survivors are still waiting. And Iraq has yet to formally recognize the genocide—blocked by those who try to claim the Ezidis as their own.
We remember the victims.
We name the truth.
And we will not stop until justice is done and our people can return home safely. Ezidi Times will continue to speak. Loudly. Relentlessly. Truthfully.
Eleven years after the Ezidi genocide, survivors are still waiting—for justice, for reparations, and for meaningful support. This event in Washington, DC brought Ezidi voices and policymakers together to ask: what will it take to finally move from commemoration to action?
In a significant step toward holding perpetrators accountable, an Iraqi court has sentenced a former ISIS member to death for his involvement in the kidnapping of Ezidis during the 2014 genocide in Sinjar. The individual was found guilty of participating in the armed attacks and mass abductions that targeted the Ezidi people in northwestern Iraq.
Humanity walks through history carrying the ashes of its own crimes. Every stone laid at memorials like Tsitsernakaberd whispers of lives extinguished and of promises broken — never again, we say, yet again and again, we fail. As the eternal flame burns for the Armenians of 1915, it casts a shadow that reaches Sinjar, where the Ezidi people still suffer the consequences of the genocide ISIS unleashed in 2014. Eleven years later, the wounds remain unhealed, deepened by betrayal, neglect, and cynical politics. How many more memorials must we build before we finally understand that remembrance is not enough — justice and protection must follow, or the cycle will never end?
The Imperial War Museum in London opened Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict, the UK’s first major exhibition on wartime sexual violence, running through November 2. It includes testimony and artefacts from Ezidi women enslaved by ISIS, alongside other global cases, raising awareness of survivors’ struggle for justice. The Free Ezidi Foundation contributed to the exhibition.
Two former Ezidi women enslaved by ISIS expose the dark past of Syria’s interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, warning the West not to trust a man who once walked among jihadi commanders and presided over unspeakable horrors. Their testimony challenges the narrative of reform and calls for vigilance against repeating history.
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An Iraqi military official emphasized that the PKK disarmament process should include Sinjar, where armed groups loyal to the PKK remain active. The official stressed that these groups must be part of any agreement. The PKK began destroying weapons in May, a move welcomed by Turkey as “a new era.”
The abrupt suspension of US aid to Iraq has left thousands of Ezidi genocide survivors stranded in displacement camps, stripped of vital mental health, protection, and humanitarian services.
Efforts to trace thousands of Ezidis abducted during the 2014 Sinjar genocide remain stalled amid political inertia and structural obstacles, a new report reveals. More than a decade after the Islamic State’s genocidal attack on the Ezidi people in northern Iraq, the search for those still missing has yielded only Read more
The Center Genocide in Kosovo – An Open Wound has strongly criticized the Basic Court of Pristina for convicting former ISIS fighter Murat Dërnjanin of crimes against humanity, rather than genocide, despite clear international findings that ISIS committed genocide against the Ezidi people in Iraq. On July 4, 2025, the Basic Court of Read more
The Ezidi people endured brutal attacks in 2014 when ISIS forcibly displaced them from their ancestral homeland in northern Iraq, killing and enslaving thousands. ISIS falsely accused the Ezidis—whose ancient religion, Sharfadin, has roots in Mesopotamia—of worshipping Satan. After the military defeat of ISIS, many Ezidis remained in United Nations camps for internally displaced persons, relying heavily on humanitarian assistance.
The Ezidi people, an ancient ethnic and religious group from northern Iraq, continue to face dire conditions in displacement camps years after ISIS attacks forced them from their homes. The reduction in funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has severely impacted reconstruction efforts, access to medical care, and essential services in camps where many Ezidis remain internally displaced.
Earlier this year, the United States dismantled its foreign aid agency, USAID, cutting billions of dollars in humanitarian and development support in Iraq. This decision has already left some of Iraq’s most vulnerable—like the Ezidi people of Sinjar—at risk of losing critical services essential to their survival and recovery.