He was in the news in India for having looked after Lamia Haji Bashar, who is known to have escaped the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq and for having won the European Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov human rights prize in 2016.
Mirza Dinnayi worked with her through his organization Air Bridge Iraq (Luftbrücke Irak), a humanitarian organisation that seeks to provide medical treatment for Iraqi children and terror victims in German hospitals.
He is the coordinator of the Yezidi Democratic Community in Germany and has been head of the Qendil publishing house and information centre.
Since 2011, he has worked as a consultant for the KRG (Kurdish Government) to the General Board for Disputed Areas (Gerenal Board for Disputed Areas), in the Council of Ministers of KRG.
He spoke to Metro Plus about the present situation of the Yezidi Community and what needs to be done to help them, on a visit to the city as part of the International Women’s Conference at the Art of Living International Centre. Excerpts:
When did you first begin working in the region, through Air Bridge Iraq?
I was in Germany when the Al Qaeda attacked two Yezidi villages in Iraq, over 300 people were killed and over 1,000 people, including several children were injured. I was in Germany at that time. I decided to take humanitarian action through a private initiative by ferrying several injured children to Germany for treatment. After we brought the first nine children to Germany, we decided to establish an NGO to do this. From 2007 until 2014, we brought 200 children from different parts of Iraq across in collaboration with different hospitals in Germany. We managed the cost of treatment through private sponsors.
What happened next?
In 2014, when the ISIS attacked, we began a humanitarian mission, bringing food and other aid via helicopter. I broke my leg and was in a wheelchair for three months. I was deeply moved by photographs of people starving in the Sinjar Mountains. I decided to return to Northern Iraq. I met two girls who had escaped from the ISIS. They changed my life and I decided to dedicate my life to them. The Yezidi community has so many problems that it’s not possible for one NGO to cover all of them. I decided to help out those women and children who were captives of the ISIS. When I returned to Germany, I spoke to different NGOs who work with Yezidis and convinced the German government to have a special resettlement project for them.
We were lucky that the government of Baden-Wurttemberg decided to take in 1,000 women and children, with a local partner. They chose to collaborate with us. In 2015, we resettled and rehabilitated 1,100 women and children.
What about the others?
There are over 500,000 Yezidis in Iraq, over 100,000 escaped the country to seek asylum in Europe. Among the remaining 400,000, over 80,000 are in formal or informal refugee camps in different places. There are some humanitarian organizations working across the country but they cannot possibly cover the needs of all the refugees.
Most of the refugees are traumatised. We have over 2,000 women and children who have returned from slavery. Their family borrow money to buy back the women. Many of these survivors go back to live with their families in refugee camps. Iraqi law does not help them because they follow Islamic law and the Yezidi are not Muslim. Even those who have returned from slavery, were forced to convert to Islam and have legal and economic problems because of that.
Those who are in the camps have been living there since 2014. Large families live in small tents, share one or two bathrooms with 10 other such families. These camps do not offer jobs or a new life for the refugees, the families are dependent on humanitarian aid which is no longer as abundant.
The Yezidis cannot return home as there are over 65 mass graves near their villages around the Sinjar region. How can the community return to villages where the bones of their relatives have been buried just a few metres away?
What can be done for them?
We have been asking for a special resettlement for the survivors of slavery, in another country which can take care of them. We have no trauma therapy or rehabilitation programme here.
For the other Yezidis, we have been asking the international community to establish an autonomous area where people can trust the government and the authorities, with international protection for the next five to 10 years until peace has been established.
When ISIS attacked Yezidi regions in 2014, the region comprised 90 per cent Yezidi and 10 per cent Muslim, most of the remaining 10 per cent turned on the Yezidi. They were living in harmony 24 hours before that! Many of them joined forces with the ISIS and attacked the community. How can the Yezidis return to their villages in such a scenario?
We also need a transitional justice system to bring people who committed crimes against the Yezidi to be brought to justice.
- From 2014 to mid-2015, the girls tried to escape by reaching the safe zone, or by going to another family,” says Mirza. “There was a group of people who tried to help them get back home through difficult roads by staking their lives. There were groups of good smugglers who went to the ISIS markets to buy back girls.
- “After the ISIS was defeated in 2016, the ISIS saw them as a source of income and began selling them back to their families for over $10,000. Some organizations tried to help these families. It was, however, difficult for them to decide whether they were helping people reunite with their family or funding the ISIS.
- “There are still over 3,000 Yezidis in captivity. They could have all been brought back earlier and these women could have been spared the suffering.”
What are you currently working on?
We are now taking care of the women and children who have returned from ISIS captivity. We are also working with different organizations and institutions in Europe to lobby for the rights of the minority communities in the region.
