News Center_The Women’s Committee of the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK)has renewed its warnings over the ongoing risks facing the Yazidi community in Shingal,affirming that the effects of the genocide that took place in 2014 remain present, particularly amid continuing threats to the region.

The Women’s Committee of the Kurdistan Natinal Congress (KNK) issued a statement today,Saturday,August 1, marking the anniversary of the Shingal genocide, in which it shed light on the cultural and physical genocide inflicte on Yazidi women, and affirmed the importance of granting Shingal self-administration to secure the region’s safety and future.

The committee commemorated the names of those who lost their lives during the genocide,noting that the goal of the massacres was to eliminate the identity of the Yazidi people, and that threats against them continue to this day.

The statement noted that on August 3, 2014, Shingal witnessed two simultaneous massacres, affirming that the goal of the attacks was nor limited to killing Yazidis, but extended to an attempt to erase their cultural and social identity, particularly through targeting women as bearers of communal heritage and identity. It added that the aim was to erase the Yazidis' existence in the region entirely, not merely to inflict human losses.

"Yazidi Women Were Subjected to the Most Horrific Attacks"

The committee affirmed in its statement that the Yazidis, despite all the hardships, managed through thousands of years of resistance to preserve the true essence of Kurdish identity in the region: "For this reason, Yazidi women were subjected to the most horrific attacks of this century. They were abducted, raped, and tortured, and sold in slave markets, and thousands of women remain missing to this day."

The statement noted that in recent days, threats have circulated around Sinjar under the pretext of a Shia-Sunni conflict, but the issue is not fundamentally about Shia or Sunni Islam, but is linked to control over the region within the framework of new strategic objectives.

Sinjar and Geostrategic Conflict

The statement highlighted Sinjar's geographic importance, as a region linking northern Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Region, and Rojava, noting that it is an area subject to the monitoring and interest of international powers. It affirmed that, aside from humanitarian aid, no government or parliament recognizing the genocide has taken sufficient political action to secure a safe future for the Yazidis.

In closing its statement, the Women's Committee issued a call to women's organizations and civil society institutions: "Sinjar should be granted self-administration within the Iraqi legal framework, the fate of missing Yazidi women must be disclosed, and those who incited and carried out the genocide must be brought to trial. Governments and parliaments that recognize the genocide must, through the Iraqi government, play a diplomatic and political role to enable the Yazidis to obtain self-administration, so that Yazidis can protect themselves, live freely, and practice their beliefs and culture — Sinjar must become a self-governing region."