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Iraqi MP urges government to solve Yazidis'
problem in Greece
20.11.2007
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November 20, 2007
BAGHDAD,-- The Head of the Kurdish Yazidi
movement and its representative in the parliament
Amin Farhan Gigo on Monday called on the government
and the international organizations to intervene to
save Yazidis in Greece.
Speaking at a press conference held in Baghdad, Gigo
said "many Yazidis forced to leave Iraq because of
the repression and oppression against them in al-Shekhan,
mainly after the armed attacks against them in al-Qahtaniya
district."
Four truck bombs were detonated last August in Kar
Izir area, 35 km south of Sinjar, and at the Siba
Sheikh Khidr housing compound, leaving over
300 Kurdish Yazidis killed
and 250 others wounded.
Sinjar, 120 km northwest of Mosul, is inhabited by
Yazidis, a religious minority whose followers are
generally situated in northern Iraq. Some 350,000
Yazidis live in villages around Mosul.
"Around 250 Yazidis rode the Turkish ship of
"al-Tag" on October 26 heading from Turkey to Italy.
The captain tried to sink the ship by damaging its
engines and left it in the open sea," Gigo
continued.
"The Yazidis have remained in the high seas for 14
days until Greek coastal guards found them," he also
said.
"Their fate still unknown," he added, voicing fear
over sending them back to Iraq.
He urged the Iraqi and Greek government as well as
the international organizations to give them the
right of humanitarian asylum.
The Yazidi faith is not a missionary religion. Its
followers are concentrated in northern Iraq.
According to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR),
there are about 800,000 Yazidis all over the world.
550,000 of them live in Iraq and concentrated in the
district of Sinjar, where the temple Lalesh is
considered the holiest shrine for Yazidis, the
district of al-Shaykhan (50 km north of Mosul), the
district of Bueshiqa (15 km east of Mosul) and some
other areas and villages in the provinces of Ninewa
and Duhok.
Yazidis are primarily ethnic Kurds and most live
near Mosul, with smaller communities in Armenia,
Georgia, Iran, Russia, Syria, and Turkey. The
estimates of their population size vary, partially
due to the Yazidi tradition of secrecy about their
religious beliefs.
Yazidis worship seven angels, in the form of
peacocks, who are subordinate to the supreme god who
created the universe.
A couple of related incidents in the spring
highlighted the tensions between Sunnis and Yazidis.
In April 2007, a Kurdish Yazidi teenage
girl was brutally beaten,
kicked and stoned to death in northern Iraq by other
Yazidis in what authorities said was an "honor
killing" after she was seen with a Sunni Muslim man.
Although she had not married him or converted, her
attackers believed she had. Sunni Arabs revenged by
killing 22 Yezidi workers.
The Yazidis condemn mixing with people of another
faith.
A U.S. military official said the Sunni al-Qaeda
Organization in Iraq sent members of the Yazidi
religious minority threatening letters, called
"night letters," telling them "to leave because they
are infidels."
VOI
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