Dr. Dindar Zebari, coordinator of international advocacy at the Kurdistan Regional Government, said on the 11th anniversary of Sinjar’s liberation that the city’s liberation on November 13, 2015, under the direct leadership of President Masoud Barzani, with the participation of more than 7,000 Peshmerga and the sacrifice of more than 500 martyrs, was a historic turning point in defeating ISIS terrorists.
The coordinator of international advocacy highlighted the scale of ISIS crimes against the Yazidi community, saying: More than 5,000 civilians were killed, more than 400,000 people were displaced and 6,417 people were abducted. Despite the liberation of 3,595 people, the fate of 2,526 abductees remains unknown to this day.
Regarding the documentation of the crimes, Zebari said: Within the framework of cooperation with the international team "UNITAD," more than 57 gigabytes of evidence and over 3,000 cases of ISIS crimes have been documented. The United Nations has also officially recognized those crimes as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Meanwhile, of the 93 mass graves discovered in Sinjar, 37 have been exhumed, and the remains of 296 victims have been identified through DNA testing.
Regarding the current situation in the area, Dr. Dindar Zebari stressed the need to fully implement the Sinjar Agreement, signed in October 2020 between Erbil and Baghdad, and revealed that due to the lack of security, inadequate services and stalled reconstruction, more than 75% of Sinjar’s residents still live in camps as internally displaced people.
