Religious Events
The Yazidi Genocide
Persecution
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The Islamic State's campaign against the Yazidi religious minority of Sinjar, northern Iraq, beginning with the August 2014 assault on the region: men killed in mass executions, women and children abducted into slavery, and shrines and villages destroyed. The United Nations Human Rights Council's own Commission of Inquiry concluded in 2016 that ISIL's conduct amounted to genocide against the Yazidis.
Facts
Consequences
Lasting ConsequenceAs of 2025 more than 2,560 Yazidis, mostly women and children taken into captivity, remain missing, and mass grave exhumation across the Sinjar region is still incomplete a decade after the attack. Roughly 150,000 Yazidis have returned to Sinjar, while close to 200,000 remain displaced, most in camps in Iraqi Kurdistan. 2 Lasting ConsequenceOn 30 November 2021 the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main convicted former Islamic State member Taha al-Jumailly of genocide against the Yazidi minority, sentencing him to life imprisonment for the death of a five year old Yazidi girl held in his captivity. It was the first verdict anywhere in the world to apply the genocide label to Islamic State crimes against the Yazidis, reached through German universal jurisdiction rather than an Iraqi or international tribunal. 3 Lasting ConsequenceThe 2018 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Denis Mukwege and the Yazidi survivor Nadia Murad "for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict," bringing international attention to the campaign of sexual enslavement carried out against Yazidi women and girls during the genocide. 4 Status
Official Recognition Recognition BasisRecognized as genocide by the United Nations Human Rights Council's Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (2016), the United States Congress (2016), the European Parliament, and the parliaments of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and other states in the years that followed. 1 Disputed
Death TollThe retrospective household mortality survey's own estimate of Yazidis killed in the initial August 2014 attack on Sinjar, the lower documented bound from a single systematic study; wider accounts of the full campaign, including deaths in captivity, range higher without a single agreed total. Death TollThe same retrospective household survey's own upper 95 percent confidence bound for Yazidis killed (2,100 to 4,400), against the 3,100 central estimate recorded as death-toll-min. The width reflects the extrapolation method of a household mortality survey rather than a direct body count; mass grave exhumation across the Sinjar region remains incomplete as of 2026, so no fully counted total exists to replace either figure. Displaced (Low Estimate)The Commission of Inquiry's own account of Yazidis displaced from the Sinjar region by the August 2014 assault; the precise figure is contested amid years of shifting displacement camp populations across northern Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. The Event
When It HappenedAugust 2014 assault on Sinjar, with enslavement, captivity and displacement continuing through ISIL's territorial defeat in Iraq in 2017 and beyond. 1 Period2017 marks ISIL's territorial defeat in Iraq; captivity, displacement and the search for the missing continued past this date, described in event-date rather than fixed to a single closing year. Victim GroupThe Yazidi religious community of Sinjar, northern Iraq 1 Perpetrator RegimeThe Islamic State (ISIL), the self-proclaimed caliphate controlling Sinjar from August 2014 1 Origins
Defining MomentBetween 16 and 27 November 2025, Iraqi authorities working with the International Commission on Missing Persons exhumed eight further mass graves at Siba Sheikh Kheder, Tel Yousifka and other sites across the Sinjar and Al Baaj districts, uncovering the remains of at least 42 more victims. It brought the cumulative total since exhumation work began in March 2019 to 82 mass graves, 770 sets of remains recovered and 297 victims identified and buried. 5 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The August 2014 assault on Sinjar, and the enslavement, captivity and displacement that followed through ISIL's territorial defeat in 2017, took place in Iraq, per The Yazidi Genocide's own event-date fact.
Conducted By
Persecuted Group
Sources
1. "They Came to Destroy": ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis
Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, United Nations, 2016View the Source 2. International Organization for Migration Iraq, "Through the Survivors' Voices: Eleven Years After the Yazidi Genocide" (2025)
International Organization for Migration (IOM), Iraq Mission, International Organization for Migration, Iraq (iraq.iom.int), 2025View the Source 3. Amnesty International, "Germany/Iraq: World's First Judgment on Crime of Genocide Against the Yazidis" (2021)
4. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, Nobel Peace Prize 2018 Press Release
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, The Nobel Prize (nobelprize.org), 2018View the Source 5. Recent Exhumations in Iraq Reveal 42 More Victims of the Yazidi Genocide
Yazda, Yazda, 2025yazda.org/recent-exhumations-in-iraq-reveal-42-more-victims-of-the-yazidi-genocide
6. Mortality and kidnapping estimates for the Yazidi population in the area of Mount Sinjar, Iraq, in August 2014: A retrospective household survey
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