NEWS CENTER -  Deputy Co-chair of the Shengal Autonomous Council Heso Ibrahîm shared that during the ISIS genocide, Massoud Barzani told the spiritual leader of the Yazidis, Xertu Haji Ismail, "Tell your nation to be Muslim".

 

Thousands of people were killed and more than 7 thousand women and children were taken prisoner in the attacks that ISIS launched on 3 August 2014 against the Shengal region near Mosul and Iraq, where the Êzidis lived. The attacks, in which around 400 thousand people had to migrate, were called the "73rd edict" by the Êzidî people.

 

Heso İbrahîm, Deputy Co-chair of the Shengal Autonomous Council, spoke to M. Ali Beydağı from Yeni Yaşam newspaper about the attack they faced at that time. 

 

While the peshmerga fleed on the night of the attack, Heso İbrahim stated that the people told them to leave their guns if they are fleeing and added: "The Peshmerga fired at the people and as a result of this fire they opened, 3 Êzidîs were martyred. The same Peshmerga who fired at the people because they wanted their guns, did not fire a single bullet at the ISIS and fleed from Shengal. The Êzidîs were slaugthered, their daughters were abducted. These stories are known."

 

İbrahim also shared the details of the meeting between Xertu Haci İsmail (Bavê Şêx), who was the spiritual leader of the Êzidîs at that time who died on October 1, 2020 at the age of 87, and KDP Chairman Mesut Barzani, who was the Federal Kurdistan Regional President at the time.

 

BARZANİ'S RESPONSE

 

İbrahim said: "The plan was to kill all Êzidîs, and not to let them go. They held the bridge gate in Sihela Beravê. They held the Sihela Beravé Bridge gates so that people could not escape from ISIS. When Bavê Şêx went to see Masud Barzani, he said, "Everyone stayed there" Masud Barzani ‘Tell your nation to be Muslims. We used to be Êzidîs too. We became Muslim and escape slaughter". Bavê Şêx was crying. Mesud sometimes says that he could not forget Bavê Şêx's tears. He is telling the truth, he will never be able to forget. Because Bavê Şêx resisted and we will resist too."

 

Reminding that more than 7 thousand people were captured by ISIS at that time as far as they know, İbrahim said, "We don't know how many of them died or how many of them survived. ISIS used them as human shields. Except the ones who died and those who were rescued from the ISIS, 3 million of them are still missing. We don't know what happened to them."