\n The Yazidis, which a German court found to be victims of genocide in a historic first on Tuesday, are a Kurdish-speaking ethno-religious minority.\n<\/p>\n
\n Islamic State jihadists carried out a horrific massacre of the community in northwestern Iraq in August 2014, killing men en masse and abducting thousands of girls and women as sex slaves.\n<\/p>\n
\n - An ancient faith -\n<\/p>\n
\n Mainly living in remote corners of the north of Iraq, the Yazidis are followers of an ancient and unique religion.\n<\/p>\n
\n Their faith emerged in Iran more than 4,000 years ago and is rooted in Zoroastrianism. Over time it has also absorbed elements of Islam and Christianity.\n<\/p>\n
\n Organised into castes, and with no holy book, Yazidis pray to God facing the sun and worship his seven angels -- first and foremost Melek Taus, or Peacock Angel.\n<\/p>\n
\n Their holiest site is Lalish, a serene stone complex of shrines and natural springs in Iraq's mountainous northwest where visitors must walk barefoot.\n<\/p>\n
\n The faith is led by a five-member High Spiritual Council based in nearby Sheikhan, which includes both the worldwide \"prince\" of Yazidis and Baba Sheikh, their religious chief.\n<\/p>\n
\n Yazidis discourage marriage outside of their community and even across their caste system.\n<\/p>\n
\n Their usual beliefs and practices, such as a ban on eating lettuce and wearing the colour blue, have often been seen by other Iraqis as satanic.\n<\/p>\n
\n Yazidis are organised into three castes -- sheikhs, pirs, and murids -- and cannot wed across them or outside the sect. Children are Yazidi only if both their parents are.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Yazidis in numbers -\n<\/p>\n
\n Of the world's nearly 1.5 million Yazidis, the largest number -- 550,000 -- lived in Iraq before being scattered by the IS offensive in 2014.\n<\/p>\n
\n But since IS swept across Sinjar in 2014, around 100,000 have fled to Europe, the US, Australia and Canada.\n<\/p>\n
\n Among the Yazidis who have found refuge in Germany are 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad who was captured, raped and forced to marry a jihadist before she was able to escape.\n<\/p>\n
\n With the Lebanese-British lawyer Amal Clooney, Murad has been fighting for the IS to be put on trial for their crimes.\n<\/p>\n
\n Only a few thousand Yazidis have been able to return home to Mount Sinjar.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Long persecuted -\n<\/p>\n
\n Their status as non-Arabs and non-Muslims has placed Yazidis among the most vulnerable minorities in the Middle East, where orthodox Muslims have often derided them as \"devil-worshippers\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Yazidis say they have been subject to 74 \"genocides\", including the IS attack in 2014.\n<\/p>\n
\n One of the worst, according to the High Spiritual Council, saw 250,000 Yazidis perish several hundred years ago.\n<\/p>\n
\n They were also persecuted by the Ottoman Empire in the early 1900s and more recently by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, whose iron-fisted rule between 1979 and 2003 forced thousands of Yazidi families to flee.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Iraqi Constitution of 2005 recognised the Yazidi right to practise their religion and gave them seats in the central and autonomous Kurdish parliaments.\n<\/p>\n
\n - IS and its aftermath -\n<\/p>\n
\n The Islamic State seized the Yazidi bastion Sinjar in August 2014, unleashing a brutal campaign that the United Nations has said could amount to genocide.\n<\/p>\n
\n According to religious authorities, more than 1,280 Yazidis were killed by IS, leaving several hundred children orphaned. Nearly 70 shrines were destroyed.\n<\/p>\n
\n Several dozen grave sites have been identified across Sinjar containing the remains of IS victims.\n<\/p>\n
\n Some women who had been forced to bear the children of IS fighters have left them in neighbouring Syria, as they would not have been accepted by the minority.\n<\/p>\n
\n In May, a special UN team said it had \"clear and convincing proof\" of a genocide.\n<\/p>\n
\n A court in Frankfurt on Tuesday jailed an Iraqi IS member to life in prison for war crimes against the Yazidis, finding him guilty of genocide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Yazidis, which a German court found to be victims of genocide in a historic first on Tuesday, are a Kurdish-speaking ethno-religious minority. Islamic State jihadists carried out a horrific massacre of the community in northwestern Iraq in August 2014, killing men en masse and abducting thousands of girls and women as sex slaves. - […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-84976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n