Persecuted by Islamic State, Yazidis turn to ICC for justice
Advocates for the
Yazidi people of northern Iraq, who have been targeted by Islamic State
because they are not Muslims, urged the International Criminal Court on
Thursday to investigate their persecution as a potential case of
genocide.In a meeting with
ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, two Yazidi groups submitted a report
detailing atrocities they allege IS fighters in northern Iraq have
perpetrated since August 2014.
They
include the summary executions of more than 700 Yazidi men, the killing
of the sick and elderly, the rape and enslavement of thousands of women
and the abduction of their children, who are forced to convert to Islam
and fight for IS.
More than
400,000 Yazidi have fled Iraq's Sinjar and Nineveh Plains districts, at
times with the help of U.S. and Iraqi strikes against IS forces. They
are now living in camps in areas controlled by the Kurdish Regional
Government of Iraq.
