Coming to the verge of destruction: survival, change and engagement in the Yazidi community

The Islamic State’s (ISIS) violence against the Yazidis, a community with historical roots in the Sinjar area of northern Iraq, in the summer of 2014 has received huge international attention. ISIS executed thousands of Yazidis and took large numbers of women and children as hostages. At least 10,000 Yazidis were killed or kidnapped and those that managed to escape the brutal attacks were displaced and are still living today in displacement camps scattered around Iraqi Kurdistan, albeit some moved to Western countries as refugees. Several thousand Yazidis remain unaccounted for. The identification and documentation work, including examining mass graves, is continuing. Due their dwindling numbers and dispersion across Iraq and all around the world, they fear the end of the Yazidi existence as a community in Iraq and find it hard to envision a future for their community there.