In 2014, the world came to know the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as it exploded onto the global scene with bloody conquests in Iraq and the Middle East.
ISIS became legendary for its barbarism: it beheaded prisoners, forced captives into slavery, and destroyed anything that conflicted with their extremist ideology.
In August 2014, the small Yazidi ethnic group would face the full force of this brutality.
Today on A Day In History, we explore a tale of slavery, depravity, and mass murder in the 21st-century genocide of the Yazidis of Iraq.
Who Are the Yizidis?
Not many people have heard of the Yazidis. After all, even the highest estimates place their global population at no more than 1.5 million, or as low as 700,000.
The Yizidis are a small Kurdish ethnic group who have traditionally lived in small pockets of the area known informally as ‘Kurdistan’ in Iraq, although today they also have a diaspora of a few hundred thousands around the world.
The history of the Yazidis mirrors that of other Kurdish peoples—recurring persecution from the numerous states and empires that have ruled over them, but despite it all, they have maintained their own communities, language, culture, and religion.
This Yazidi religion is unique.
They are monotheists, but not Abrahamic like Christians or Muslims, and instead their religion draws more from the ancient Persian Zoroastrian faith.
This religion has been a primary motivation for their persecution.
Muslim rulers have oppressed them as ‘unbelievers’ and Yazidi persecution has not been met with the same sympathy in the Christian world that fell upon people like the Armenians.
