Iraq
A memorial commemorating the Yazidi people’s genocide at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS). Date: October 18, 2023. Photo: Bilind T. Abdullah/Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s health ministry on Sunday announced a campaign to collect blood samples from Yazidis in northwestern Nineveh province, as Baghdad steps up efforts to identify victims of the Islamic State’s (ISIS) atrocities.
Health Ministry spokesperson Saif al-Badr told state-run Al-Sabah newspaper that authorities have “launched a special national campaign through the mass graves department in the forensic medicine directorate to collect information and blood samples from the relatives of the victims of the Yazidi component in Nineveh.”
ISIS abducted 6,417 Yazidi women and children during its 2014 assault on Shingal, subjecting many to abuse and forced labor. A total of 3,593 survivors have since been rescued, according to the Office of Rescuing Abducted Yazidis, while efforts continue to locate those still missing.
Badr said the ministry has also organized a program in partnership with the International Committee of the Red Cross missions in Iraq and Sudan to exchange expertise on searching for missing persons.
The program includes recovering, analyzing, identifying, handing over, and burying remains “according to approved standards,” he said, adding that social support will be provided to families of the missing.
The blood sample campaign is being carried out in coordination with the Iraqi Martyrs Foundation and the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP).
The United Nations has formally recognized ISIS’s campaign against the Yazidis as genocide.
Many Yazidi women and children have been rescued from al-Hol camp in northeast Syria, which houses tens of thousands of ISIS families and supporters. Others have been found in areas formerly controlled by rebel or Turkish-backed groups, while some have been located in third countries.
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