The Pursuit Of Justice For The Yazidi Genocide Must Continue

A member of the Yazidi minority searches for clues on February 3, 2015, that might lead her to missing relatives in the remains of people killed by Daesh, a day after Kurdish forces discovered a mass grave near the Iraqi village of Sinuni, in the northwestern Sinjar area. (Photo credit: SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images)

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August 3, 2025, marks the 11th anniversary of the Yazidi genocide – genocide perpetrated by Daesh (also known as ISIS, ISIL, or IS), a non-state actors, against an ethno-religious community in Sinjar, Iraq. Eleven years later, the Yazidi genocide is ongoing, with over 2,600 Yazidi women and children still missing. The Yazidi genocide is still ongoing with the promise of justice being unfulfilled. The Yazidi genocide is still ongoing with no steps being taken to prevent further atrocities against the community in the future.

On August 3, 2014, Daesh launched a devastating attack on Sinjar, inflicting widespread atrocities on the Yazidi community. The terror group killed thousands, predominantly targeting men and elderly women, while abducting boys to forcibly conscript them as child soldiers. Thousands of women and girls were kidnapped and subjected to sexual slavery and violence. To this day, over 2,600 Yazidi women and children remain unaccounted for. Daesh’s crimes included murder, enslavement, deportation, and forced displacement. The group systematically imprisoned, tortured, abducted, exploited, abused, raped, and coerced women into marriages across the region. In the days following the Sinjar assault, Daesh expanded its campaign of terror to other communities in the Nineveh Plains, causing 120,000 people to flee in the dead of night in a desperate bid to save their lives.

The atrocities perpetrated by Daesh against the Yazidis, Christians, and other religious and ethnic minority communities have been recognized as meeting the legal definition of genocide by the United Nations and several countries (both governments and parliaments). However, the determination was not followed by any comprehensive responses ignoring the very duties the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) bestowed upon States – the duty to prevent and the duty to punish genocide.

In terms of justice, very little was done to ensure that the perpetrators were brought to account, including in Europe. Some 5,000 Daesh fighters came from European countries. Some half of them are now back. However, prosecutions continue to be rare.

This was made very clear in a report from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Special Rapporteur on Bringing Daesh to Justice Pieter Omtzigt, adopted by the Assembly in 2022. This was also made very clear in a recent report from the U.K.’s Joint Committee on Human Rights, a committee consisting of members of the upper and lower houses of the UK Parliament. The recent report looking into the UK’s responses to Daesh atrocities, and in particular, to the Daesh fighters who returned to the UK, stressed that there have been zero successful prosecutions in UK courts for international crimes committed in Syria and Iraq by Daesh. The report further found that investigation and prosecution require better coordination, and for this, changes are needed.

Other countries have been more successful, including Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. Among most recent developments on the justice front, on July 8, 2025, the Investigating Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal ruled that French national Sonia Mejri will stand trial before the specially composed Assize Court for her alleged involvement in crimes committed against the Yezidi community, including the crime of genocide. Sonia Mejri is accused of having joined Daesh and participating in its operations in Syria. However, prosecutions continue to be an exception rather than a norm.

Marking the 11th anniversary of the Yazidi genocide, Pari Ibrahim, Executive Director of the Free Yezidi Foundation, commented: “Once again, the top demand from our community is to identify and rescue the missing – nearly 2,600 Yezidi civilians, many of whom are still held in parts of Syria, Turkey, and elsewhere. Beyond this, Sinjar remains in disrepair, and serious efforts must be made to facilitate the return of Sinjar’s residents and a secure, dignified life where the well-being and interests of Yezidis are taken into account. (…) perpetrators should be facing justice, one by one. Instead, justice has eluded the Yezidi community, and impunity reigns. When people learn they can get away with atrocities, they will keep on doing the same thing. Justice must be seen to be strong and stand above the shoulders of everyone, especially those who committed genocide against our people.”

The sort of atrocities as those committed by Daesh – genocide that aimed at the annihilation of the community in whole or in part – require comprehensive responses which fully reflect the nature and scale of the crimes. The responses to these crimes now will ultimately define the future of the community. We must do more now to ensure that the ever-raging impunity for the crimes does not manifest in another wave of atrocities against the community. Our failure to prosecute the alleged perpetrators cannot be justified. This will be a stain on our conscience for decades to come.