Iraqi Member of Parliament Vian Dakhil said yesterday that a total of 5,830 Yazidis have been reported missing and more than 1,800 killed since Daesh took control of the city of Mosul last summer.
The Yazidi MP said that 2,000 Yazidis managed to escape or were released after being taken hostage in return for a ransom.
Dakhil noted that nine mass graves have been discovered so far since the liberation of Sinjar in Nineveh Province; and that she expects more mass graves to be discovered soon.
Dakhil’s statements could not be confirmed by an independent source.
The Kurdish Peshmerga forces, which are affiliated to the Kurdish government of northern Iraq, took full control of Yazidi-majority Sinjar last Friday. Daesh seized the district on 3 August, 2014, massacring hundreds of Yazidis and burying them in mass graves as well as abducting a significant number of Yazidi women to use as slaves and concubines.
Yazidis are a minority religious group who primarily live in regions of northern Iraq surrounding Mosul and in the mountains of Sinjar. Small numbers of Yazidis live in Turkey, Syria, Iran, Georgia and Armenia.
Daesh, also known as Islamic State or Daesh, seized Mosul in June 2014 before expanding across wider areas in northern and western Iraq and in northern and eastern Syria, announcing the establishment of what it calls a “caliphate” in the region.