Shengal Democratic Autonomous Assembly has launched a signature campaign against the Turkish state’s attacks on Shengal and South Kurdistan.

As part of the campaign, signatures will be collected in Shengal and its villages for 15 days. The Assembly aims for 50,000 signatures which will then be submitted to the United Nations, UN Security Council and the Iraqi government.

Speaking to RojNews about the campaign, Sinune District People’s Assembly Co-president Xwedêda Eliyas called upon the Yazidi people to ensure strong participation in the campaign.

Eliyas stressed that the Turkish state has been attacking the Kurds since it was founded, adding that for this reason, the signature campaign addresses to all the Kurdish people.

The Turkish state which continues its genocidal attacks in various parts of Kurdistan has also targeted Shengal in southern Kurdistan recently.

Turkish armed unmanned aerial vehicles (SIHA) carried out an attack targeting fighters of the Shengal Resistance Units (YBŞ) in the Khanasor (Xanesor) area at around 10:30 on November 19. Five YBŞ fighters were wounded in the attack, two of them seriously. One of the wounded fighters, Egîd Şengalî, lost his life four days later.

Turkish fighter jets had also shelled Shengal’s Barê region three times on November 5 evening, and the Khanasor area on November 4, leaving three YBŞ fighters wounded.

BACKGROUND

The Yazidi (Êzidî) Kurds, who follow one of the most ancient faiths of Mesopotamia, have suffered in the course of history 74 genocides, the last one perpetrated by the ISIS on the 3rd August 2014. Most of those mass murders were perpetrated by the Ottoman empire. Because most of these genocides to wipe out the Yazidi community were ordered by the at that time leading Ottoman Shahs via a fiat, the Kurdish Yazidis dubbed those genocides therefore with the Kurdish term (ferman) for "decree". The first genocide was ordered in the year 1246 by the lord of Zengi of Mosul, Bedreddin Lulu, the last one by the Neo Ottoman AKP and its ally KDP and perpetrated by the ISIS gangs. In each and every genocide, the name of Islam was used.

During the most savage genocidal campaign of the ISIS in Shengal in 2014, around 5000 Yazidi men were massacred, around 100 Yazidi men were beheaded, 7000 Yazidi girls and women were abducted and sold at slave markets, a number of Yazidi girls and women were raped and some Yazidi women were forced to marry ISIS commanders. The later revealed actual numbers of the victims and the countless Yazidis who starved to death and died of thirst, clearly showed that the estimated number of unknown cases was much higher than what was written in the report of the United Nations.

ISIS gangs wanted to destroy the Yazidi faith and identity in 2014. Peshmerga forces in the region didn’t resist ISIS, and the Yazidis were left to face a vile massacre. HPG and YPG/YPJ forces ran to their aid and rescued thousands of Yazidis from imminent death through the safe corridor they opened into Rojava.

The ISIS gangs massacred only within the first 24 hours thousands of Yazidis and kidnapped tens of thousands. Those who managed to get to Mount Shengal beheld on the mountain a light of hope. The Yazidis who always fell victims to genocides in the course of history, looked now on a small group of guerrillas of the HPG standing there in front of them on Mount Shengal, having taken control of both routes and repelled the attacks of the ISIS gangs successfully. The guerrillas of the HPG had taken both routes leading to the mountain under their control with only some light personal arms and one DShK, which the Peshmerga left behind as they were busy running away.

As news about the genocide were spread, Rojava mobilized to highest degree. The forces of the YPG and YPJ, who were themselves in Rojava's Hesekê in the heat of a great operation against ISIS gangs and their appendages, left that operation halfway and moved heaven and earth to get to Shengal over the Til Kocher, Rabia and Jazaa route. The fighters of the YPG and YPJ opened a way of hundreds of kilometres, giving dozens of martyrs, and reached Mount Shengal finally on the 8th August. The fighters of the YPG and YPJ on the mountain guided hundreds of thousands of Yazidis with the cars of the mobilized inhabitants of Rojava placed at their disposal through the corridor to Rojava. The global community, which remained until then completely silent in view of the tragedy the Yazidi people faced, titled this corridor that has been fought open fiercely, the "humanitarian corridor".

The people of Shengal, dozens of its organisations and associations have reinvented themselves anew after the fatal genocide of the 3rd August 2014. Those very same ones who teamed up with the life-saving troopers of the Kurdish forces, decided that time had come for them to establish their own defense force, comprising of young Yazidi men and women. In September 2014, not even one month after the brutal genocide, they finally declared the formation of the Shengal Defense Units (YBŞ). The Yazidi youth, whose hopes with outside forces had been totally severed, flocked one by one to the ranks of the YBŞ.

Those who were killed and abducted in the most during the genocide were once again the Yazidi women. Alone to not fall into the hands of the barbaric ISIS gangs and to remain faithful to their ancient religion of the peacock angel Tawusê Melek, hundreds of women jumped from the high cliffs of the Mount Shengal with a straight face. The other Yazidi women were taken hostage and sold in markets in this 21st century, which boasts with having improved on humanity and democracy.

Because the systems the Yazidi women were living in rendered them without will and confidence, the arrival of the Kurdish forces, among whom were also female combatants fighting fearlessly against the ISIS gangs in their emplacements, filled their hearts with enormous hope. When shortly afterwards fighters of the Women's Defense Units (YPJ) charged the ISIS gangs relentlessly to save the people and open the life saving Corridor of Humanity, the Yazidi women began to convince themselves that also they can like these brave women take position in the emplacements of the resistance. Borne out of all this, Yazidi women decided in 2015 to establish the Women's Defense Unit of Shengal (YPJ-Shengal). Shortly after that the name got changed to Shengal Women's Units (YJŞ). The YJŞ said in its first statement that they had decided to forge this military formation primarily in order to avenge the Yazidi women taken slaves and sold in markets.

The territory of Shengal and its defense forces have been made into a target by the Turkish invasion state ever since.