From the Website of United Nations
links: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=57304#.WYRoElFLfIU
ISIL's 'genocide' against Yazidis is ongoing, UN rights panel says, calling for international action
3 August 2017 – Marking three years since the Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh) attacked the Yazidis in Syria, a United
Nations-mandated inquiry has called for justice and rescue plans.
“The Commission of Inquiry calls on
the international community to recognize the crime of genocide being
committed by ISIL against the Yazidis and to undertake steps to refer
the situation to justice,” said the expert panel in a statement marking the third anniversary of ISIL's attack on the Yazidis.
According to the Commission, in the early hours of 3 August 2014, ISIL
fighters launched an attack on the Yazidis of Sinjar – a distinct
religious community whose practice spans thousands of years. Over the
following days, the terrorist group executed hundreds of men and took
captive thousands of women and children, publicly reviling them as
'infidels.'
In its June 2016 report, entitled They Came to
Destroy: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis the Commission found that many
of the women and girls were taken to Syria where they were sold as
chattel and sexually enslaved by ISIL fighters. Boys were indoctrinated,
trained and used in hostilities.
“ISIL committed the crime of
genocide by seeking to destroy the Yazidis through killings, sexual
slavery, enslavement, torture, forcible displacement, the transfer of
children and measures intended to prohibit the birth of Yazidi
children,” the report concluded.
The genocide is on-going and
remains largely unaddressed, despite the obligation of States Party to
the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
of 1948 to prevent and to punish the crime, the Commission said.
The international community must also recognize ISIL is committing the crime of genocide against the Yazidis
“Thousands of Yazidi men and boys remain missing and the terrorist
group continues to subject some 3,000 women and girls in Syria to
horrific violence including brutal daily rapes and beatings,” the expert
body noted.
Pointing out that some women and girls are being
held in Raqqa city, the Commission revealed that as the Syrian
Democratic Forces and international coalition offensive on Raqqa
intensifies, reports have emerged of ISIL fighters trying to sell
enslaved Yazidi women and girls before attempting to flee Syria.”
The Commission recommended that all parties fighting ISIL consider
plans to rescue Yazidi captives and use all possible to ensure their
freedom during on-going military operations.
“The international
community must also recognize ISIL is committing the crime of genocide
against the Yazidis,” the statement concluded, urging action to refer
the situation to justice, “including to the International Criminal Court
or an ad hoc tribunal with relevant geographic and temporal
jurisdiction as well as to dedicate resources to bringing cases before
national courts, whether under the framework of universal jurisdiction
or otherwise.”
The Independent International Commission
– comprised of the Chair, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, Karen Koning AbuZayd
and Carla Del Ponte – has been mandated by the UN Human Rights Council
to investigate and record all violations of international law since
March 2011 in Syria.
UN Website
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