Peace in Kurdistan Campaign wrote to Rt. Hon. Dominic Raab MP, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and to Rt Hon Lisa Nandy MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs about Shengal.

The letter reminded the UK Foreign Secretary that on 9 October 2020 the government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government signed an agreement on the administration and security of the region of Shengal (Sinjar) in northern Iraq.

This agreement was reached without consulting the people of Shengal or their secular and religious representatives. We consider this agreement to be a threat to inhabitants of Shengal, the mainly Yazidi people.

The letter added: “Commencing on 3 August 2014, Islamic State (IS) jihadists entered Shengal and in the name of a ‘forced conversion campaign’ slaughtered thousands of Yazidi people and abducted up to 10,800 women and children, selling them into slavery. Some half a million people were forced to become refugees and internal exiles. Even today, thousands of women and children are ‘disappeared’. Prior to this atrocity Shengal was under the control of units of the Iraqi army and Kurdistan Regional Government Peshmergas (KRG). These forces fled at the approach of the IS, leaving the people with almost no protection against the intended genocide. When the Yazidi population returned to Shengal, from 2017 onwards, after the IS had been driven from the area, they discovered mass graves containing the remains of their people. These people have now established self-defence units. They do not want a return of Iraqi government and the KRG who demand that the self-defence units be disbanded.”

The letter underlined that “the 9 October agreement was brokered with Turkish and international mediation. The forced eviction of Shengal’s population, and of other Kurdish peoples living adjacent to the Turkish border is part of the Turkish government’s plan to create a buffer zone in Syria and Iraq, to be occupied by its own troops and mercenaries in its pay. For the Yazidi people, the agreement is intended to complete what IS failed to do; eliminate them and remove their presence from lands they have lived in for millennia. Turkish armed forces have been shelling Shengal since August this year.”

Peace in Kurdistan Campaign called on the “UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to note the fears expressed by the Yazidi population and recognise the need to intercede with the government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government to demand that they act in cooperation with representatives of the people in Shengal, including the Shengal Women’s Units and the Shengal Defence Units. The UK government must state that it opposes the Turkish government’s attacks on Shengal and intention to occupy parts of Syria and Iraq.”