The Yazidi town of Shengal (Sinjar), which was subjected to genocide by ISIS mercenaries on August 3, 2014, was liberated on November 13, 2015, after months of resistance led by HPG guerrillas and Shengal Resistance Units (YBŞ). The people of Shengal formed their self-defence and self-government as the greatest response to further massacres and betrayal in Shengal.

Having declared its Democratic Autonomous Administration, Shengal became the target of both the Turkish state and South Kurdistan’s ruling party, KDP. While armed groups affiliated with the KDP and the Turkish army launched attacks in 2017, the central Iraqi government also resorted to various methods to eliminate the autonomy in Shengal.

The Turkish state carried out airstrikes on the Sikêniyê Hospital in Shengal on August 17, 2021, killing eight people and injuring more than 20 others. The Ministry of Justice of Turkey asserted that 10 PKK members had been "neutralized" in the airstrikes. 

The hospital was serving the Yazidi and Arab populations at the same time. Mothers, children, young men and women from Shengal were treated here. It was bombed not once but four times. People from the surrounding area risked death to retrieve the fallen and wounded from the rubble.

The Turkish airstrikes that destroyed the civilian Sikêniyê Hospital in 2021 have been made the subject of a formal complaint to the UN Human Rights Council. 

The Guardian reported that four claimants, either survivors or witnesses to the airstrikes, say the attacks violated their right to life under international law, as guaranteed by Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

It is the first case to be brought on the issue of Turkish airstrikes against the Yazidi people. The complaint has been prepared for the Germany-based non-governmental organization for Yazidi people's rights called 'Women for Justice.'

The claim to the UN states that the hospital was near a YBŞ (Shengal Resistance Units) checkpoint but no armed units directly protected the facility, which was built in a civilian area.

Further, the claimants state that Turkey failed to investigate the killing of civilians resulting from the airstrikes and provide victims with effective remedies, constituting a violation of their rights to a prompt, independent and effective investigation under the same covenant.

According to the Guardian, the complaint was submitted late last week and took two years to prepare.

Aarif Abraham, the director of the Accountability Unit, a human rights NGO that supports Women for Justice said, "This is a critically important and symbolic case involving clear-cut violations of the fundamental rights of Yazidi citizens by the Turkish state."

"There is no lawful excuse for targeting a civilian hospital with three successive airstrikes in 30 minutes, killing eight civilians and seriously injuring over 20 others," he added. 

Abraham believes that the UN Human Rights Committee may help to secure justice.

"Turkey has long enjoyed impunity and the international community's silence for targeting non-Turkish nationals outside its territories on the pretense of targeting terrorists. The Human Rights Committee is the only body which holds the realistic prospect of holding Turkey accountable and providing the victims with meaningful redress," he said. 

Dr. Leyla Ferman, the chief executive of Women for Justice, on the other hand, said: "After the victory over Islamic State in Shengal, the Turkish airstrikes pose the greatest security risk."