German lawmakers have declared the actions of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) against the Ezidi minority in Iraq as "genocide.”
According to Agence France-Presse AFP, the confessions were made at a session of the German parliament on Thursday.
By adoption of this proposal, Germany follows the United Nations UN , the European parliament, United States of America USA, Belgium, Canada, and the Netherlands in recognizing ISIS crimes against the vulnerable Ezidi community as genocide.
Max Lux, a member of the Green Party in the German parliament, says recognizing the "genocide" of the Ezidis is an important step to overcome the suffering of the Ezidi community.”
ISIS took control of Shingal (Sinjar) district, 120 km west of Mosul, in August 2014. The figures by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Office for Rescue of Abducted Ezidis show that ISIL extremist militants have abducted 6,417 Ezidis, of whom more than 2,700 are still missing.
"A peaceful and safe life should be our goal for the Ezidi community," Lux added.
Germany, which hosts a large number of Ezidi refugees, is one of the countries that has taken legal action against ISIS. Last November, a German court plead an Iraqi guilty of war crimes and genocide against the Ezidi minority, sentencing him to life imprisonment.
During the attacks by ISIS, 1,293 Ezidis were killed, 68 shrines were destroyed and 80 mass graves have been discovered, small part of it exhumed up to the present.
The United Nations’ Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Daesh/ISIL in Iraq and the Levant UNITAD has declared in May 2021 it had gathered "clear and credible evidence" of the crime of genocide against the Ezidis.
Hasso Hormi, head of the Ezidi International Institute for Combating the Genocide, who has been working on the August 3, 2014 case for years, earlier told KirkukNow that more than 10 parliaments of the world have recognized the Ezidi genocide.
“In particular, the recognition of the crime as genocide can both accelerate the process and ensure future compensation for the victims.”
There is no law on the crime of genocide in Iraq to recognize the case of the Ezidis as genocide.
The law of Ezidi survivors in Iraq has recognized actions against Ezidis as crimes, emphasizing the filing of complaints against the perpetrators of the crime and August 3 every year as a national day to recognize the incident.
The Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament has declared August 3, 2014 as the day of the genocide of the Ezidis.
There are more than 550,000 Ezidis in Iraq, according to the statistics of the Directorate of Ezidi Affairs in the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs of the KRG.
