The Genocide of the “Islamic State” against the Êzîdî 2014

Commemorative and documentary article on the 74th Ferman: the genocide that the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) perpetrated against the Êzîdî in the Şingal region from 3 August 2014 onward. This article is devoted exclusively to this one Ferman in depth. A historical overview of all persecutions is given in the articles Ferman Chronicle and Êzîdî Genocides Worldwide; the region itself is covered in the article Şingal. Methodology: All victim figures are given with source and range. Diverging estimates are named side by side, never a single figure without evidence. The account is factual and dedicated to remembrance.

Martyrs’ Memorial of the Êzîdî on Mount Şingal (June 2019). More than a decade after the genocide, memorials throughout the region commemorate the murdered and those still missing. · Photo: Levi Clancy · License: CC0 · Source: Wikimedia Commons

Introduction

On the morning of 3 August 2014, fighters of the so-called “Islamic State” attacked the Şingal region in northwestern Iraq, the demographic and cultural heartland of the Êzîdî worldwide. In the following days and weeks, thousands of people were murdered, thousands of women and children were abducted and enslaved, and almost the entire Êzîdî population of the region was driven into flight. The independent UN Commission of Inquiry found two years later that these acts meet the legal definition of genocide, committed with the declared intent to annihilate the Êzîdî as a religious community.

In the Êzîdî’s own tradition, this genocide is the 74th Ferman: the most recent in a long series of waves of annihilation. The count 72/73/74 is orally transmitted and partly symbolic; the count most commonly used today, confirmed by Mîr Tahsîn Saîd Beg (1933–2019) and the Spiritual Council, lists Şingal 2014 as the 74th Ferman (on the counting tradition see Ferman Chronicle). Unlike the historical Fermane, the genocide of 2014 was not perpetrated by a sultan’s decree but by a non-state terror regime, and it is the first Ferman to be convicted as genocide before international courts.

Background and Context

The Rise of IS and the Fall of Mosul

The so-called “Islamic State” emerged from the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda and grew stronger in the course of the Syrian civil war from 2013 onward. In June 2014 the organization captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city (10 June 2014), in a surprisingly swift offensive, and shortly afterward Tal Afar (16 June 2014). On 29 June 2014 its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a “Caliphate”.

This brought the front line right up to the Êzîdî settlement areas. The Şingal region lies in the “disputed territories” between the Iraqi central government in Baghdad and the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan (KRG); after the withdrawal of the Iraqi army from the north in June 2014, units of the Kurdish Peshmerga (KDP) had taken control of Şingal and pledged to protect the civilian population.

The Withdrawal of the Peshmerga on 3 August 2014

During the night before and on the morning of 3 August 2014, the Peshmerga units stationed in Şingal withdrew before the IS attack reached the region, according to consistent reports, largely without a fight and without warning or evacuating the civilian population. The people left behind were largely unarmed and defenseless. Responsibility for this withdrawal remains, to this day, the subject of grave accusations and legal reckoning within the Êzîdî community and against the KDP leadership (see Political Situation Worldwide).

The Course of Events in Şingal

Assault and Mass Executions

The attack began on 3 August 2014 in the early morning hours and engulfed the town of Şingal and the surrounding villages. Wherever IS captured Êzîdî, a recurring pattern followed: men and boys over about twelve years of age were separated from the women; whoever refused to convert to Islam was shot or beheaded. Women and girls were taken prisoner and abducted as “spoils of war”.

Several places became scenes of mass executions, among them the village of Hardan as early as 4 August and the village of Solagh, where older women considered “unsellable” were killed. In the villages around the mountain, hundreds of bodies were left behind; the sites were later documented as mass graves.

The Massacre of Kocho

The village of Kocho (Koço) south of the mountain was surrounded by IS and placed under an ultimatum for days: convert to Islam or die. On 15 August 2014, the attackers herded the inhabitants together in a school, separated the men from the women, and shot the men in groups outside the village. The women and children were abducted. Kocho became the symbol of the genocide, also because it is the home village of Nadia Murad, who lost her mother and six brothers.

Flight to the Mountain and Siege

Tens of thousands of Êzîdî fled the advancing IS fighters onto Mount Şingal (Çiyayê Şingalê), which has served for centuries as a place of refuge during persecutions. There, in high summer, they were exposed to the scorching heat without sufficient water, food, or shelter; numerous people, above all children and the elderly, died of thirst and exhaustion. The siege of the mountain triggered an international response: from 7 August 2014 onward, the United States and allies flew the first air strikes against IS positions and dropped relief supplies over the mountain.

The Humanitarian Corridor

The way down from the mountain was opened to the trapped people above all by a corridor that fighters of Kurdish formations from Syria, the YPG and units associated with it (PKK-affiliated structures), held through IS territory. By way of this corridor toward northeastern Syria and from there back to the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan, according to varying estimates, several tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand people were able to save themselves. This operation is deeply anchored in the collective memory of many Êzîdî.

The Crimes

The UN Commission of Inquiry and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch documented a system of coordinated crimes aimed at the annihilation of the Êzîdî as a community.

Mass Murders

Men and boys over about twelve years of age, as well as older women, were systematically killed, by shooting, beheading, or in the overcrowded collection points. The dead were buried in pits; the mass graves thus created run through the entire region.

Sexual Enslavement: the sabaya

Thousands of women and girls were declared sabaya, a term with which IS designated enslaved women who, according to its ideology, could be traded as property, “distributed”, and raped. Girls from about nine years of age were affected. Women were repeatedly resold, abducted to prison camps and the private households of fighters, locked up, tortured, and systematically sexually abused. Sexual enslavement was not the excess of individuals but a fixed, ideologically grounded and organized component of the genocide, extending to its own sales rules and “slave markets”. Walk Free documents this practice in the Global Slavery Index as one of the gravest examples of modern slavery in a conflict context. On the situation and the resistance of Êzîdî women, see the article Women in Êzîdîism.

Child Soldiers and Forced Conversion

Boys were torn from their families, taken to camps, and indoctrinated as child soldiers (“Cubs of the Caliphate”), trained in the use of weapons, and forced to abandon their religion. Adults were given the choice between conversion to Islam and death. The forced conversion, the separation of men and women, and the abduction of the children were aimed at preventing the birth of Êzîdî children and destroying the transmission of the religion, features that the UN explicitly assessed as indications of genocidal intent.

Victim Figures

The source situation regarding the victim figures is inconsistent. The authoritative reference is the epidemiological study by Cetorelli et al. (PLOS Medicine 2017); alongside it, higher initial and community estimates circulate. Both are named here side by side.

The study by Cetorelli and colleagues additionally estimates that in the first days of the attack alone around 3,100 Êzîdî were killed, about half by direct violence (shooting, beheading), the other half by the conditions during flight (thirst, exhaustion, lack of medical care).

Mass Graves

Spread across the entire region, more than 200 mass graves are documented, of which around 80 in the district of Sinjar itself. The investigative unit set up by the UN, UNITAD (Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL), worked together with the Iraqi authorities on the exhumation: by the end of its mandate, 37 mass graves had been exhumed and the remains of 186 victims identified and returned to the families for a dignified burial according to Êzîdî rite. UNITAD ended its mandate in September 2024; a large part of the identifications is still pending, and more than a thousand abductees are still considered missing.

Recognition as Genocide

The United Nations 2016

On 15 June 2016, the independent international Commission of Inquiry of the United Nations on Syria presented the report “They Came to Destroy”: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis (document A/HRC/32/CRP.2). The report finds that IS is committing a genocide against the Êzîdî, which at the same time meets the definition of crimes against humanity and war crimes. It is based on interviews with survivors, religious leaders, aid workers, and eyewitnesses and identifies the killings, the sexual enslavement, the forced conversion, and the abduction of the children as means of annihilation.

Parliamentary and State Recognitions

In the following years, numerous parliaments and states formally recognized the genocide, among them the European Parliament (already in February 2016), the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Armenia.

The German Bundestag resolved on 19 January 2023, on the basis of the cross-party motion printed paper 20/5228 (SPD, Alliance 90/The Greens, FDP, CDU/CSU), unanimously to recognize the IS crimes against the Êzîdî as genocide. This recognition is consistent with the account in the article Êzîdî Genocides Worldwide.

Legal Reckoning

The 74th Ferman is the first Ferman to be tried and convicted as genocide before courts, predominantly under the principle of universal jurisdiction in European states.

• Taha al-Jumailly: Higher Regional Court Frankfurt am Main, 30 November 2021: life imprisonment. It was the world’s first verdict to explicitly classify the IS crimes against the Êzîdî as genocide. Convicted, among other things, for the death of a five-year-old Êzîdî girl whom he had enslaved with his wife and chained up in the heat.
• Jennifer Wenisch: Higher Regional Court Munich, 25 October 2021: ten years’ imprisonment. The wife of al-Jumailly was the first IS returnee convicted in Germany in connection with the crimes against the Êzîdî.
• Lina Ishaq: District Court Stockholm, 11 February 2025: twelve years’ imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, Sweden’s first genocide verdict in this context; the Court of Appeal Svea hovrätt upheld the verdict on 11 November 2025.
• Sabri Essid: Court of Assizes (Cour d’assises) Paris, verdict 20 March 2026: life imprisonment in absentia for genocide and crimes against humanity, France’s first genocide verdict concerning the Êzîdî.

In Iraq itself, the Yazidi Survivors Law entered into force in 2021, guaranteeing survivors compensation and support; in the country, however, the crimes have so far been prosecuted predominantly as terrorism, not as genocide.

Nadia Murad

Nadia Murad (2018). The survivor from Kocho became the world’s best-known voice of the Êzîdî genocide victims. · License: CC BY 2.0 · Source: Wikimedia Commons

Nadia Murad Basee Taha (born 1993 in Kocho) was abducted on 15 August 2014; her mother and six of her brothers were murdered. After weeks of captivity and sexual enslavement, she managed to escape. Instead of remaining silent, she made her own fate public and became the world’s best-known voice of the Êzîdî survivors.

In 2016 the United Nations appointed her the first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking (UNODC). In 2018 she received, together with the Congolese physician Denis Mukwege, the Nobel Peace Prize: honored for her efforts against the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. With her autobiography “The Last Girl” (German: Ich bin eure Stimme, 2017) and her foundation Nadia’s Initiative, she campaigns for the reconstruction of Şingal and the reckoning with the genocide. Portraits of further personalities are gathered in the article Notable Personalities.

The Situation Today

More than a decade after the genocide, its wound remains open.

• Missing: Several thousand Êzîdî are still considered missing; among them, according to aid organizations, are still around 2,700 women and children whose fate is unclear. Some women and children are presumably still today in camps such as al-Hawl in northeastern Syria.
• Mass graves: The exhumation and identification of the dead is, after the expiry of the UNITAD mandate in 2024, only partially complete. Every burial of identified victims in the home villages is an important, painful act of remembrance for the community.
• Return: About half of the displaced population has returned to Şingal; hundreds of thousands continue to live in camps in the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan or in the diaspora. Reconstruction is stalling, because of the unresolved political status of the region, the presence of competing armed groups, and the destroyed infrastructure (see Şingal and Political Situation Worldwide).
• Trauma: Survivors, especially freed sabaya and former child soldiers, bear severe traumas. The reintegration of abductees into the community, including of children born in captivity, confronts the Êzîdî with deep religious and human questions, which the Spiritual Council has addressed with special decrees on the readmission of survivors.

The commemoration of the 74th Ferman is today a core of Êzîdî identity in Şingal as in the worldwide diaspora. 3 August is observed as a day of remembrance. Whoever wishes to understand the history of the Êzîdî must understand this day, and the dignity of those who survived it.

Note on language: The self-designation is Êzîdî. The exonyms used in the IS context and in some sources do not reflect the community’s self-understanding. False claims about the Êzîdî religion, such as the slander that the angel Tawûsî Melek is a “devil”, are among the ideological pretexts with which persecution was justified over centuries; they are refuted in the article Forgeries and Slanders.

Sources

• UN Human Rights Council, Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic: „They Came to Destroy": ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis (A/HRC/32/CRP.2), 15. Juni 2016, OHCHR-Pressemitteilung · Volltext (ReliefWeb)
• Cetorelli, V.; Sasson, I.; Shabila, N.; Burnham, G.: Mortality and kidnapping estimates for the Yazidi population in the area of Mount Sinjar, Iraq, in August 2014: A retrospective household survey, PLOS Medicine 14(5), 2017, DOI 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002297
• Nadia Murad: The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State, 2017 (dt. Ich bin eure Stimme), Nadia’s Initiative
• Das Nobelkomitee: The Nobel Peace Prize 2018, Nadia Murad, nobelprize.org · UN News, 5. Oktober 2018
• UNITAD (Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL): Berichte zur Exhumierung der Massengräber in Sinjar, unitad.un.org
• Walk Free: Global Slavery Index, walkfree.org/global-slavery-index
• Yazda: Global Yazidi Organization: Dokumentation der Massengräber und Überlebenden-Unterstützung, yazda.org
• Amnesty International (2014) und Human Rights Watch (2015): Berichte zu Folter und sexueller Versklavung êzîdîscher Frauen in IS-Gefangenschaft, amnesty.org · hrw.org
• Deutscher Bundestag: Antrag Drucksache 20/5228, einstimmiger Beschluss vom 19. Januar 2023, bundestag.de Textarchiv
• Gerichtsurteile: OLG Frankfurt a. M. gegen Taha al-Jumailly (30.11.2021, lebenslang, Völkermord); OLG München gegen Jennifer Wenisch (25.10.2021); Bezirksgericht Stockholm gegen Lina Ishaq (11.02.2025); Cour d’assises Paris gegen Sabri Essid (20.03.2026)

The contested figures in this article follow the editorial number canon of ezdixan.de (as of 2026-06-14). Where sources diverge, ranges are given with source attribution.