ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A US government religious freedom commission has called on Turkey to end its "brutal airstrikes" and ground presence in Sinjar (Shingal), the heartland of Iraq's Yezidi ethnoreligious community. The call came in a statement released Friday by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), amid Turkish air and ground offensives across the Kurdistan Region and in northern Iraq's Shingal and Makhmour that have killed at least five civilians. “USCIRF calls on Turkey to immediately cease its brutal airstrikes in Sinjar, Iraq and to withdraw any ground troops — who represent a dangerous escalation of violence in an already-fragile area," read comments in the statement attributed to organisation head Gayle Manchin. "These actions are particularly threatening to hundreds of traumatized Yazidi families attempting to return to Sinjar and to other civilians in northern Iraq — none of whom deserve to be placed in harm’s way by a NATO ally,” Manchin added. Turkey launched an aerial and ground operation against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the Kurdistan Region this week, as well as areas disputed between Erbil and Baghdad. Four civilians were killed in Duhok province, and one in Erbil province. Villages close to the Turkish border have been emptied by residents in fear of the airstrikes. A community once numbering 500,000, the overwhelming majority of Iraq's Yezidis sought refuge elsewhere in Iraq or abroad after the Islamic State (ISIS) group seized Shingal, part of a vast swathe of territory across Syria and Iraq captured in the summer of 2014. Yezidis were subject to exceptional violence by ISIS, who viewed the ethnoreligious community as heretics. Thousands of Yezidis were killed, abducted, or subjected to sexual slavery; thousands remain missing. Six years on, parts of Shingal remain in ruin and its security situation fragile, with a host of militias and security forces operating in the area. Despite the obstacles, hundreds of Yezidis have returned home in recent days. Reacting to multiple strikes against suspected PKK bases in Shingal on Monday, Yezidi activist and Nobel laureate Nadia Murad described her hometown "a war zone." "Over 150 Yazidi families had just returned to their homes. When will [the Iraqi Government] and the international community apply some courage and political will to resolving security challenges in Sinjar?" Murad said on Monday. Ankara has said that its operations are targeting suspected PKK positions within the Kurdistan Region and northern Iraq. The PKK has denied having "any activities" in the Shingal area. Though the USCIRF statement points to operations in Shingal, comments by the organisation's vice-chair also condemned Turkish military operations more broadly in Iraq and in northeast Syria. “Turkey’s operations in Iraq and northeastern Syria make it clear that regional ambitions—not domestic security—are driving its actions today, and it cannot be allowed to do so with impunity,” USCIRF Vice Chair Tony Perkins stated. “We call upon the administration to utilize all diplomatic and economic leverage to protect vulnerable religious minorities in northern Iraq—as well as neighboring northeastern Syria—from Turkey’s indiscriminate military operations.” The US came under Kurdish criticism when it pulled its troops out of northeast Syria in October 2019, effectively greenlighting a Turkish invasion of northeast Syria that led to the deaths of scores of civilians and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. In its annual religious freedoms report published in April 2020, USCIRF accused Turkey of enabling the "forced religious, ethnic and cultural replacement" of northeast Syria's diverse population — accusations to which Turkey hit back at as being “baseless, unaccredited, and vague".
