Kurdistan National Congress

Amid a Geostrategic Struggle, Şengal is Once Again Under Threat

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On the 12th anniversary of the Şengal genocide, we bow our heads in remembrance of all those we have lost.

On 3 August 2014, two genocides took place simultaneously in Şengal. One was aimed at the physical extermination of the Yazidi people; the other was a cultural genocide carried out through feminicide against Yazidi women, who were the primary bearers of Yazidi culture and identity. The objective was not only the physical destruction of the Yazidis, but their complete eradication from the face of the earth.

Through thousands of years of resistance, the Yazidis—especially Yazidi women as the custodians of culture and identity—had preserved the essential foundations of Kurdish identity in the region. For this reason, Yazidi women became the targets of some of the most brutal atrocities of the century. They were abducted, raped, tortured, and sold in slave markets. Thousands of women are still missing today.

The genocide of 3 August 2014 was carried out under the banner of ISIS (Daesh). In recent days, a new threat has emerged around Şengal under the guise of the Sunni–Shia conflict. However, this is not fundamentally a conflict about Sunni or Shia Islam. Rather, it is about gaining control of the region within the framework of new strategic objectives.

For centuries, Şengal has been a sacred homeland for the Yazidi people. It occupies a strategically important border region connecting Northern (Bakur), Southern (Başûr), and Western (Rojava) Kurdistan. It also lies within Nineveh (Mosul) Province, an area that has repeatedly been the focus of power struggles among Turkish, Arab, and Persian rulers, and which continues to be under the close attention of international powers.

Today, Ezidxan once again finds itself caught in the midst of geopolitical competition between regional and global powers. Further, apart from providing humanitarian assistance, governments and parliaments that have recognised the Yazidi genocide have taken no meaningful political measures to secure a safe future for the Yazidi people.

By contrast, women’s organisations and civil society in Ezidxan have consistently called for the establishment of an autonomous status for the region within the constitutional framework of Iraq.

We therefore call for the following:

• To ensure justice in Şengal, the missing Yazidi women must be found, and those who planned, incited, and carried out the genocide must be brought to justice.
• Although recognition of the genocide against the Yazidis by many states has been a positive step, the threats facing the Yazidi people have not yet been eliminated in practice. Governments and parliaments that have recognised the genocide should also play an active diplomatic and political role, in cooperation with the Iraqi government, to ensure that the Yazidis of Şengal are granted autonomous self-government so that they can protect themselves.
• Şengal must become an autonomous region so that the Yazidi people can defend themselves while freely practising their faith and preserving their culture.
• Şengal must become an autonomous region so that Yazidi women can live in freedom and without fear.

 

KNK Women’s Commission

1 August 2026

Open Letter To the Heads of State and Government of NATO Member States