The Yazidi genocide:a demographic documentation of ISIL’s attack on Tel Qasab and Tel Banat

On 3 August 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) attacked the Yazidis of Sinjar. Within days, reports emerged of men and boys being executed; of women and girls being kidnapped, sold, sexually enslaved, beaten, and forced to work; and of boys forced into ISIL training camps and made to fight. This paper analyses ISIL’s assault on the Yazidis in the villages of Tel Qasab and Tel Banat. It is the second publication of the Yazidi Victims Demographic Documentation Project (YVDDP), the objective of which is to identify every victim of ISIL’s attack. It corroborates YVDDP’s previous findings that the attack targeted the Yazidi community, that those captured were either killed or kidnapped, and that the violations suffered depended on the perceived gender and age of the victims. The data underscores the necessity of using a gender-competent, age-disaggregated analysis in order to understand the full scope of ISIL crimes. The consolidated database resulting from this documentation project will have multiple short, medium, and long-term uses. These include, for example, a data pool that can assist in identification of remains in mass graves, and which provides reliable information for use in planning for and prioritisation of needs – including provision of counselling, increased medical interventions, and gender- and age-specific needs. It also provides reliable information of high probative value for use in criminal prosecutions before national, regional, and international courts, and is capable of informing transitional justice processes, including material and symbolic reparations.