Thousands of Yazidis left traumatized in northern Iraq

World Today

The Yazidis are a Kurdish religious community who have been persecuted by ISIL forces in Iraq.

Thousands of Yazidi girls and young women are held captive by them, many as sex-slaves.

Those who have managed to escape are left deeply traumatised, with little or no psychological help.

CCTV America’s Kate Parkinson reports.

Hundreds of Yazidi women and children have been rescued or managed to escape from the clutches of the so-called Islamic State.

In this camp in northern Iraq they tell harrowing stories of rape and torture, and of people still missing.

“They took girls as young as 14, 12, 9, even 8 years old as sex slaves. They trained the boys to use guns, how to pray and to read the Quran. Those who didn’t learn would be beaten. Once they almost beat beat my son to death with cables,” One woman who was held captive for a year said.

She escaped but her son and two teenage daughters had been sold on, and are still being held captive.

Dr Taib is overseeing the psychological treatment of hundreds of victims. A trauma centre has been set up, but it has limited resources.

The United States says the atrocities committed by the Islamic State against the Yazidis are acts of genocide.

But that means very little to the thousands of traumatised people, surviving in makeshift camps or to those who are still being held captive by IS militants.


Faiysal AliKhan on US describes what’s happening to Yazidis as genocide

CCTV America’s Susan Roberts spoke to Faiysal AliKhan. He is a fellow in the National Security Studies Program at the New America Foundation.