"This ceremony shows that life has returned despite the terrorism of IS and its bloody attacks," said Jihan Sinan, a 21 Yezidi woman attending the celebration on Friday, as reported by AFP.
Hundreds of men dressed in traditional “dishdasha” robes and women veiled in white gathered at the site of the temple destroyed by ISIS in 2014 when the terrorist group carried out genocide against the Yezidi people.
Bashiqa is located 15 kilometers east of Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul, which was liberated from ISIS in July of last year.
The restored temple is just one of the 68 Yezidi temples destroyed by ISIS since their invasion.
The Yezidi community in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq was comprised of some 550,000 people before ISIS overran the area, killing men and taking women captive as sex slaves.
According to the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), some 360,000 Yezidis were displaced and approximately 100,000 fled abroad.
Of the 6,417 Yezidis captured by ISIS when they attacked Shingal in August 2014, just over half have been rescued.
At the ceremony in Bashiqa on Friday, Ali Rashwakari, a Yezidi religious leader asked the international community to help “rebuild the temples and Yezidi regions” of Iraq.
