In Geneva yesterday, Breen Tahseen, an Iraqi diplomat and son of the leader of the Yazidi people, called for international action to halt the genocide of his people at the hand of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Speaking to reporters in Geneva as a representative of his father, Tahseen said jihadists from the Islamic State (IS) group had killed more than 3,000 Yazidi and had kidnapped 5,000 more since they first entered Iraq’s northwestern Sinjar region at the beginning of the month.
The IS attack on Yazidi villages in the area of Mount Sinjar began in early August, the latest chapter in an offensive that has seen the jihadists seize large swathes of Iraqi territory, forcing minorities either to convert to Islam, flee or be killed.
Tahseen said that tens of thousands of Yazidis fled to Mount Sinjar to flee ISIS and that some 20,000 still remain there, contrary to reports that the number of Yazidi stranded on the mountain is much smaller. He also said that about 4,000 Yazidi families remain in the area, where, last week, hundreds were killed and kidnapped by ISIS.
Hillel Neuer, executive director of the watchdog organization UN Watch, presented a petition to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay calling on “the United Nations Human Rights Council, to protect the right to life of these vulnerable populations who are now in very grave danger.”
[Photo: unwatch / YouTube ]