August is a month of tragedy and pain for the Yazidis, an ancient religious minority from northern Iraq.
In the early hours of Aug. 3, 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) stormed through Sinjar, determined to erase the tiny, insular religious group. After announcing their caliphate in Iraq and Syria, ISIL killed men and boys, sold women into sex slavery or forced them to convert and marry militants. Those who could, fled.
A decade later, survivors of the genocide gathered on Friday at Queen’s Park, the Ontario legislature in Toronto, to commemorate a harrowing chapter in their history and to call on the Canadian government to fulfill a promise made to their community.
In 2017, Canada pledged to resettle ethnic and religious minorities from Iraq, including Yazidi survivors. Around 1,200 individuals were brought to Canada, including over 800 Yazidi women and children who escaped the horrors of Islamic State slavery, said Sheikh Mirza Ismail, chairman of the Yezidi Human Rights Organization International, and an organizer of the rally. These women say Canada promised to reunite them with their family members, but, years later, they are still waiting.
“We are extremely disappointed with the Canadian government. The government said we don’t discriminate against anyone so that we will bring people from different regions, but these people faced genocide, and the Canadian government recognized the genocide,” said Ismail. “We are asking for fair treatment, equal treatment as Canadians.”
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said in a statement that “the Government of Canada has met its previous commitment,” and brought a total of more than 1,400 ISIL survivors between 2017 and 2021.
The IRCC said the government made efforts to reunite families in 2019 and 2021 but some survivors in Canada have immediate family members who are still in captivity or missing and this delayed reunification.
Melkeya Aleiso is one of the survivors who fled to Canada. The 33-year-old Yazidi woman, was kidnapped from Shingal, a district in the Sinjar region. She was sold to ISIL fighters in Raqqa, then the de facto capital of the group’s caliphate in Syria. Her son was just one week old when her husband was killed. For more than two years, she sustained the torment of being held as a sex slave before managing to flee to the Kurdistan region, where she found refuge in a camp.
On the anniversary of the genocide, Aleiso reflected on the promises made by Canadian immigration officials. During interviews in Iraq, she was assured that the government would help reunite her with family members left behind in refugee camps in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, she said.
“I want everyone to hear us and help us bring my family,” she told National Post. “Seven years, being a single mom with one child, they didn’t do anything for us. It’s a hard situation.”
Aleiso is still undergoing treatment for her trauma and relies on medication. Unable to afford sponsorship for her family members without a job, she recently applied for an IRCC program announced in December 2023 that is aimed at admitting family members, extended family members and dependants of Yazidis and survivors of ISIL who have already been resettled in Canada. Although she received an email confirming her application was accepted, she has yet to hear further steps.
IRCC told National Post that the program was supposed to run until December 2026, but it closed after just one week as they received more than 1,160 submissions, more than the program limit of 400 principal applicants plus their immediate family members. The government is currently seeking more information from the applicants. Only 400 applications will be approved.
Nidhal Ahmad, 36, was kidnapped along with her two children and held captive by ISIL fighters in Sinjar, a mountainous region in northern Iraq that is home to the Yazidi community. Sinjar was devastated in the attack in 2014. More than 300,000 people were displaced by ISIL and since then only 43 per cent have been able to return, according to the International Migration Organization.
Many Yazidis are still living in tent settlements in Kurdistan, despite the Iraqi government urging people to go home.
Despite their homeland’s deep emotional and religious significance, many see no future there. There’s no money to rebuild destroyed homes. Infrastructure is still wrecked. Multiple armed groups carve up the area. And the landscape is haunted by horrific memories.
Like Ahmad, thousands of Yazidi women were taken by fighters when ISIL captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, and Sinjar. they were sold as sex slaves and subjected to rape. The religion of the Yazidis draws from Zoroastrian, Christian, Manichean, Jewish and Muslim beliefs and ISIL considered heretics. They were transported to cities in Iraq and Syria under the group’s control.
Ahmad’s nine siblings remain in northern Iraq under harsh conditions. Despite promises from the Canadian government, she feels forgotten. “Canada does not care about us,” she said.
Ahmad’s past is marred by more than two years of captivity in Iraq and Syria. She said she became pregnant by an Islamic State fighter in Syria and, to facilitate her escape, pretended to convert to Islam in Mosul. Her Kurdish Islamic State captor allowed her to visit mosques, and during a U.S.-led airstrike on her area, she was wounded. Along with her two children, she fled to Kurdistan. Local authorities initially arrested her, but, with her family’s help, she was released and transferred to a refugee camp. In 2017, she was resettled in Canada.
Aleiso and Ahmad are still waiting for their loved ones to be brought to safety. The pain of separation from their families continues to haunt them, they said.
“Canada should bring our family because they are in danger as a minority in Iraq,” Ahmad told the Post. “We are part of Canadian society and Canada should take our issue seriously.”
National Post, with additional reporting from The Associated Press
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