HRW decries Kurdish trade restrictions on Yezidis
Displaced Yezidis.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Kurdish regional authorities are imposing restrictions on Yezidi that hinder the ethno-religious minority’s recovery after a few years of atrocities under the extremist Islamic State, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
“The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq has placed disproportionate restrictions on the movement of goods into and out of the district of Sinjar, the center for Iraq’s Yezidi religious minority,” the organization said in a report released on Sunday. “blanket KRG restrictions disproportionate to any possible security considerations are causing unnecessary harm to people’s access to food, water, livelihoods, and other fundamental rights,” it added.
HRW noted that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) attributes its restrictions to activities by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has run a local army of Yezidis that enjoys freedom of movement across the borders with Syria.
Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said: “The KRG should be working to facilitate access to Sinjar for the hundreds of Yezidi civilians wishing to return to their homes, not adding more barriers to their recovery.”
“The families we spoke to in Sinjar say they are unable to pursue their traditional livelihoods – they are barely managing day to day,” Fakih said. “If these levels of restrictions persist, Sinjar and the Yezidis will find it very difficult to recover.”
Thousands of Yazidi Kurds fled Sinjar to nearby mountain areas following its fall to Islamic State militants in August 2014. The extremist group massacred, enslaved and tortured thousands of that sect.
Data from the office on Yezidi kidnapping victims show that 2640 Yezidis were released from captivity by Islamic State militants over the past two years, but there are 3770 others still in the extremist group’s hold.
The Kurdish-speaking minority came to the spotlight when Islamic State militants, taking over large parts of Iraq, victimized its members, committing massacres and subjecting them to forced conversions, sexual slavery and other reported atrocities.