The Sinjar massacre marked the beginning of the genocide of Yazidis by ISIL, the killing and abduction of thousands of Yazidi men, women and children. It took place in August 2014 in Sinjar city and Sinjar District in Iraq's Nineveh Governorate and was perpetrated by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The massacre began with ISIL attacking and capturing Sinjar and neighboring towns on 3 August, during its Northern Iraq offensive.
Mount Sinjar
President Obama meeting with his national security advisors on 7 August 2014
Demonstration in Paris against persecution of Kurds and Yazidis.
Defend International reaching out to Yazidi refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan, December 2014
The Yazidi genocide was perpetrated by the Islamic State throughout Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2017. It was characterized by massacres, genocidal rape, and forced conversions to Islam. The Yazidi people, who are non-Arabs, are indigenous to Kurdistan and adhere to Yazidism, which is an Iranian religion derived from the Indo-Iranian tradition. Over a period of three years, Islamic State militants trafficked thousands of Yazidi women and girls and killed thousands of Yazidi men; the United Nations reported that the Islamic State killed about 5,000 Yazidis and trafficked about 10,800 Yazidi women and girls in a "forced conversion campaign" throughout Iraq. By 2015, upwards of 71% of the global Yazidi population was displaced by the genocide, with most Yazidi refugees having fled to Iraq's Kurdistan Region and Syria's Rojava. The persecution of Yazidis, along with other religious minorities, took place after the Islamic State's Northern Iraq offensive of June 2014.
Left-to-right from top: Yazidi refugees receiving support from the International Rescue Committee; American relief worker of USAID conversing with Iraqi locals near Sinjar; packaged bundles of water inside of a C-17 Globemaster III prior to an emergency airdrop by the United States Air Force.
A Yazidi mass grave in the Sinjar region in 2015
The ruins of Sinjar in July 2019 after the invasion of the Islamic State
Defend International provided humanitarian aid to Yazidi refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan in December 2014.