Êzîdî in Turkey, Syria and Russia: Three Edges of an Old World

Status: 2026-06. This article deals with three Êzîdî communities that appear only marginally in the other diaspora articles: the nearly vanished Êzîdî of Turkey (Tur Abdîn, Viranşehir, Batman, Mardin), the divided community of Syria (Afrîn and the Cezîre around Amûdê/Qamishli) and the diaspora of Russia that emerged through Soviet and post-Soviet migration. The worldwide population figures and the overall overview can be found in the article Diaspora and Demography; the South Caucasus diaspora, from which the Russian community arose, is covered by Êzîdî in Armenia and Georgia. The history of persecution behind most of these migrations is presented in the Fermane Chronicle and under Islamization; the escape routes themselves under Migration Routes. Methodology: All figures with source and year. Where statements contradict each other, both are given. Census data and NGO estimates are explicitly kept apart, Êzîdî figures are, for structural reasons, uncertain (recorded as “Muslims” or “Kurds”, inconsistent self-identification, migration dynamics).

Introduction

Turkey, Syria and Russia show three very different fates of the same religious community. In Turkey, hardly anyone remains today of a population that once numbered in the tens of thousands, their villages in the southeast stand empty, their children grew up in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. In Syria, an already small community, split into two separate regions, continues to shrink under the pressure of war and occupation. In Russia, finally, a comparatively young diaspora emerged, not from the Iraqi heartland, but as an extension of the South Caucasus communities, whose families moved further north after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

What all three cases have in common is that the Êzîdî nowhere appeared as an independent religion within the official structures, as they do, for instance, in Armenia. In Turkey the constitution does not name them; in Syria the identity card long read “Muslim” or nothing at all; in Russia they were recorded only late. Anyone who reads the figures of these three countries therefore always reads, at the same time, a history of not-being-counted.

Turkey: the Almost Empty Heartland

Historical Settlement Areas

The historical core regions of the Êzîdî in Turkey lie in the Kurdish-dominated southeast: in the highland plateau of Tur Abdîn and the surrounding provinces of Mardin (Midyat, Nusaybin), Batman (the city of Batman, Beşiri), Şırnak (İdil), Diyarbakır/Amed (Sur, Bismil, Çınar) and Şanlıurfa/Riha (Viranşehir) [1]. It was a peasant village society, sheep and grain farming, small sanctuaries (several “Mal-i Êzîdîyan” around Midyat), close kinship networks.

The 19th century was already marked by violence: the Êzîdî of Tur Abdîn were massacred in 1844 during the campaigns of the Kurdish prince Bedirxan Beg [1]. The same region was affected during the First World War by the genocide of the Armenians and Assyrians, in which Êzîdî too were killed or fled with the Armenians to Transcaucasia (in detail: Fermane Chronicle).

The Drastic Decline

Hardly any Êzîdî community has emigrated so completely in such a short time as the Turkish one. The figures, for all the uncertainty of their collection, speak for themselves:

Today one speaks of a few hundred long-established Êzîdî. To these were temporarily added, from 2014 onward, several thousand Êzîdî refugees from Şingal/Iraq, who were partly housed in a camp near Midyat but who for the most part travelled on to Germany and Sweden [3].

The cause of this hemorrhage was a mixture: religious discrimination, the absence of economic prospects, and above all the escalation of the conflict between the PKK and the Turkish military from the 1980s onward. Many families left in 1979/80 and after the military coup of 1980; a large wave abandoned their villages around 1992, heading for Germany [4][5]. Most Êzîdî of today’s German diaspora, for example in Celle, Hannover and Oldenburg, come from these southeastern Anatolian villages (see Diaspora and Demography). From a cluster of eight villages around Midyat, in which roughly 6,000 Êzîdî lived about half a century ago, almost no one was left by the early 2010s [5].

Abandoned Villages and Return Initiatives

The result is a landscape of half-ruined Êzîdî villages. Examples are Bacîn south of Midyat (Tur Abdîn), “today predominantly an abandoned Êzîdî village”, or Oyuklu/Taqa, which was regarded as a ghost village from the mid-1980s until 2012, after all 29 extended families had emigrated to Germany [5].

Since the (temporary) peace process between the PKK and the Turkish government from 2013 onward, there have been individual return initiatives. Families began to return to their home villages and to restore ruined houses [4][5]. Within the framework of the state “Köye Dönüş” program (return to the village), authorities in Şırnak and İdil contacted former residents of around 130 houses in the village of Mağara and supported returnees with repairs [4].

This return, however, was fraught with conflict. In many cases, after the departure, Muslim neighbors or tribes had taken over the abandoned land [5]. In the district of Beşiri (Batman), for instance, the families of the village of Kuşçukuru/Kelhok had to litigate for eight years to recover their land from the Karabulut and Biter clans; after their return in 2019, threats and assaults occurred repeatedly [4]. The return thus remains a fragile, locally very limited phenomenon, there can be no talk of a broad revival of the community.

Legal Status

The Turkish constitution does not recognize Êzîdism as a religion in its own right. Recognized are solely Sunni-Hanafi Islam (through the Diyanet) as well as, pursuant to the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, three non-Muslim minorities (Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Jewish); the Êzîdî are not among them [1]. In practice they have been tolerated since the 2010s, without state persecution as still occurred in the 1980s/90s, but also without formal recognition.

Syria: Two Separate Communities Under Pressure

Afrîn and the Cezîre

The Êzîdî of Syria live, unlike the contiguous settlement areas in Iraq, in two spatially separated regions [6]:

• Afrîn / Çiyayê Kurmênc (Kurd-Dax) in the northwest, near the Turkish border: before 2018 the center of Êzîdî life in Syria, with around 22 villages.
• Cezîre / al-Hasakah in the northeast: villages and urban quarters around Amûdê and Qamishli (Qamişlo) as well as in the city of Hasakah.

A first census of the region (1963) recorded about 10,000 Êzîdî [6]. In 1962 a special census in the province of al-Hasakah had stripped around 120,000 Kurds, among them Êzîdî, of their citizenship; from then on they were regarded as stateless (ajanib/maktumin), which triggered a first wave of emigration to Germany in the 1980s [6] (see Diaspora and Demography). After the influx of Iraqi Êzîdî following the IS genocide, the number temporarily rose to around 40,000 in 2013/2014 [6].

Current estimates for Syria as a whole stand at 10,000–15,000 (according to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria); other figures range more widely, from ~10,000 to ~50,000, the broad scatter shows how weak the data situation is [6].

The Turning Point of 2018

In January–March 2018, the Turkish armed forces and allied militias of the “Syrian National Army” (SNA) seized the district of Afrîn within the framework of Operation Olive Branch. For the Êzîdî community this was a decisive break: according to estimates, around 90% of the Êzîdî fled from Afrîn; of a pre-war population of 20,000–30,000, only about 2,000–3,000 remained [6]. Targeted assaults against Êzîdî are documented, forced conversions, abductions of women and girls, desecration and destruction of sanctuaries [6]. According to reports, 18 Êzîdî places of worship were destroyed in Afrîn alone, and nationwide around 80% of Êzîdî religious sites were plundered, desecrated or destroyed [6].

The spiritual center of the Afrîn Êzîdî was the village of Qîbar (also Arsh Qibar), the traditional seat of the region’s leading family, the Derwêş clan. In its surroundings lay a dense cluster of sanctuaries, among them the cave shrine Çilxana (Çilxane), the Melek-Adî shrine on Mount Lilon and the shrine cave Cilmera [9]. Representative of the wave of destruction is the desecration of the Çilxana: in May 2020 armed groups dug up the shrine, which many families visited for blessings, in search of antiquities [9].

The displaced fled mostly into areas still under Kurdish control, into the Aleppo quarters of Şêx Maqsûd and Aşrafiyye as well as into the Şehba region north of Aleppo, where they were sheltered in camps such as Tel Rifat [6]. A further offensive, Operation Peace Spring in October 2019, depopulated Êzîdî villages near Serê Kaniyê (Ras al-Ain); around 1,200 Êzîdî were driven into the Waşokanî camp [6].

Legal Status and Organizations

Under the Assad regime, Êzîdism was officially not recognized as a religion in its own right. In the Kurdish-led autonomous administration (AANES/Rojava), the Êzîdî have been regarded as an equal religious community since 2014; there exist a “Mala Êzîdiyan” (Êzîdî House) in the Cezîre and an Êzîdî women’s council. In the Turkish-occupied territories (Afrîn, Serê Kaniyê) there is effectively no freedom of religion. According to human rights reports, the abduction of Êzîdî women and girls by SNA-affiliated groups is an ongoing problem [6].

Russia: a Young Diaspora from the South

Origin and Centers

The Êzîdî community of Russia is not an offshoot of the Iraqi heartland, but the extension of the South Caucasus diaspora. Its roots lie in the Êzîdî villages of Armenia and Georgia, whose families moved further north into the Russian Federation in Soviet times and above all after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s for economic reasons [2][7] (background: Êzîdî in Armenia and Georgia).

The centers are the Krasnodar Krai and the Stavropol Krai in the south, alongside Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow and Saint Petersburg [2][7]. Unlike in Armenia, there are no contiguous village landscapes in Russia, but predominantly urban communities; the languages spoken are Kurmancî and Russian [2].

The Census Figures

The Russian censuses record the Êzîdî as a separate category. A comparison of two census years yields:

Important for context: The figures of 2010 (40,586) and 2021 (26,257) are not a contradiction, but two different census years. The decline is explained partly by actual emigration (among other things, onward to Germany), partly by methodological and identity-related factors in self-identification in the 2021 census (cf. the explanations under Diaspora and Demography as well as the WIKI-FIGURES-CANON of this archive). Êzîdî organizations estimate the actual number to be considerably higher, orders of magnitude of 80,000 or more are mentioned, because unregistered immigrants from Armenia and Georgia enter the census only incompletely [2]. These NGO estimates are to be labelled as such and not mixed with the official figures.

Legal Status and Organizations

In the Russian Federation, the Êzîdî were officially recognized as a religious community in 2009 [2]. In the census they can identify themselves both as an ethnicity and through their religion (also called Şerfedîn/Sharfadin). There is no state persecution pressure; isolated societal discrimination is reported.

The most important media project is Lalish TV, a satellite channel founded in Moscow in 2016 that broadcasts in Kurmancî and is financed by the Êzîdî entrepreneur Mirza Sloyan [2], the same patron who co-financed the world’s largest Êzîdî temple, Quba Mêrê Dîwanê, in Aknalîç (Armenia). There are no major sanctuaries in Russia; the faithful continue to make pilgrimage to Lalîş in Iraq and to Aknalîç.

Synthesis

Three countries, three trajectories: in Turkey, an old heartland community has almost entirely emigrated to the German diaspora, with only tentative, conflict-ridden attempts at return. In Syria, a small, divided community is being further ground down by war and occupation, Afrîn as a memorial to this development. In Russia, a young, urban diaspora grows and shrinks to the rhythm of post-Soviet migrations, statistically tangible yet underestimated. What all of them share is the experience of long having appeared, in the official categories of their state of residence, either not at all or only blurrily, a common thread of Êzîdî history that also recurs in the worldwide Diaspora. The political situation of the Êzîdî in these and other states is presented separately under Political Situation Worldwide.

Note on spelling: This article consistently uses Êzîdî/Êzîdî (not “Yazidi”, except in source titles/quotations) and proper names in Kurmancî-Latin spelling (Afrîn, Cezîre, Amûdê, Şingal, Lalîş, Tur Abdîn). Tawûsî Melek, the Peacock Angel, is a central divine figure of the faith and is never equated with the “Devil”, an old slander that historically helped to underpin many of the persecutions described here.

Sources

[1] Wikipedia (EN), Yazidism in Turkey, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazidism_in_Turkey (figures 1980s–2019; Bedirxan Beg massacre 1844; settlement areas; Lausanne status)

[2] Wikipedia (EN), Yazidism in Russia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazidism_in_Russia (census 2010 = 40,586; migration from Armenia/Georgia; recognition 2009; Lalish TV / Mirza Sloyan; settlement cities)

[3] Birgül Açıkyıldız, The Yazidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion (I.B. Tauris, 2010), chapter on Turkish history and on Tur Abdîn (standard work on historical distribution)

[4] Daily Sabah, Yazidi families return to Turkish homes after crackdown on PKK, https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/war-on-terror/yazidi-families-return-to-turkish-homes-after-crackdown-on-pkk (return program “Köye Dönüş”, Mağara/130 houses, Kuşçukuru/Kelhok in Beşiri, land dispute, return from 2013); supplementary Duvar English, Batman’s Yazidi families attacked again amid resettlement dispute (2019), https://www.duvarenglish.com/domestic/2019/12/17/batmans-yazidi-families-attacked-again-amid-resettlement-dispute

[5] Qantara.de, Yazidis in Turkey: Old homeland, new homeland, https://qantara.de/en/article/yazidis-turkey-old-homeland-new-homeland (Oyuklu/Taqa as ghost village, 29 extended families, ~6,000 Êzîdî in eight villages around Midyat, return from 2012, land problems); Wikipedia (EN), Bacin, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacin (abandoned Êzîdî village near Midyat, Tur Abdîn)

[6] Wikipedia (EN), Yazidis in Syria, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazidis_in_Syria (two regions Afrîn/Cezîre; census 1963 ~10,000; 1962 stripping of citizenship; ~40,000 around 2013/14; Operation Olive Branch 2018, ~90% flight, 2,000–3,000 remaining; 18 destroyed sites in Afrîn / ~80% nationwide; Peace Spring 2019; Şehba/Aleppo); supplementary Syrians for Truth and Justice, Yazidis in Syria: Decades of Denial of Existence and Discrimination, https://stj-sy.org/en/yazidis-in-syria-decades-of-denial-of-existence-and-discrimination/; Yazda, Ethnic Cleansing of Yazidis and Other Religious Groups in Syria Accelerates, https://www.yazda.org/yazda-statement-ethnic-cleansing-of-yazidis-and-other-religious-groups-in-syria-accelerates

[7] Russian census / Rosstat (Federal State Statistics Service), https://eng.rosstat.gov.ru/folder/76215 (official census figures 2002 = 31,273, 2010 = 40,586, 2021 = 26,257); Wikipedia (EN), 2021 Russian census, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Russian_census; Reconsidering Russia, Who Are the Yazidis of the Former Soviet Space? (context on origin and distribution)

[8] Philip G. Kreyenbroek, Yezidism, Its Background, Observances and Textual Tradition (Mellen, 1995), general foundation on the history and distribution of the Êzîdî; Minority Rights Group International, country profiles on Turkey/Syria (Êzîdî as a religious minority)

[9] Wikipedia (EN), Qibar, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qibar (Arsh Qibar in the Afrîn district, Aleppo; seat of the Derwêş clan; nearby shrines: Cilmera cave, Melek-Adî on Mount Lilon, Hercerka Şêx Hüseyn); North Press Agency, Turkish forces and opposition groups destroy nine Yazidi shrines in Afrin, https://npasyria.com/en/41290/ (Çilxana/Çilxane shrine dug up on 15 May 2020)