Islamic State fighters are committing genocide against the Yazidi community in Syria and Iraq through murder, sexual slavery gang rape, torture and humiliation concluded a UN report into the Islamic State crimes against the Yazidis.
Speaking at the UN Security Council, the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry Paulo Pinheiro, stressed,
“The finding of genocide must trigger much more assertive action at the political level, including at the UN Security Council.”
Lamenting the lack of action on the ongoing issue, he said,
“The genocide of Yazidis is ongoing. Almost two years since the attack on Mount Sinjar, nothing has been done to save those people.”
The UN report, entitled “They Came to Destroy: ISIS Crimes against the Yazidis” which was partially based on interviews with dozens of survivors, found that Islamic state actions against the Yazidis to “erase their identity” met the definition of the crime as defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Stressing the need for prosecutions, the UN officials added that if the path to the International Criminal Court (ICC) was blocked by vetoes at the Security Council, foreign judges would have to be used in a domestic based court.
A member of the commission Vitit Muntarbhorn said that the investigators had information on place, violations and the names of perpetrators and had started sharing information confidentially with national authorities to aid in the prosecution of those responsible.
The report found that “The scale of atrocities committed, their general nature, and the fact of deliberately and systematically targeting victims on account of their membership in a particular group, while excluding members of other groups, were other factors from which the commission was able to infer genocidal intent.”
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