Duhok hosts 1st international conference on Yazidi identity and heritage

Shafaq News/ The first International Scientific Conference on the Yazidis opened in Duhok on Tuesday, bringing together 105 researchers from 11 countries to explore Yazidi religion, culture, history, and geography.

Organized under the banner “Religion, Culture, History, and Geography,” the two-day conference aims to highlight Yazidi identity, document the suffering endured by the minority, and address widespread misconceptions about the faith and its followers.

“This is an important opportunity to correct misunderstandings and shine a light on a community that has long been marginalized,” Karwan Ajib, media official at the Lalish Cultural Center, told Shafaq News.

He said the agenda includes a series of academic sessions on the historical and current challenges facing the Yazidi community.

Speaking during a panel on the sidelines of the event, Iraqi MP Vian Dakhil criticized what she described as the government's ongoing neglect of the Yazidi cause, accusing authorities in Baghdad of failing to prioritize their plight.

“Thousands of displaced Yazidis from Sinjar have remained in camps across the Kurdistan Region since 2014 and are living under dire humanitarian conditions, with no durable solutions in sight,” Dakhil said.

She called on the federal government to either implement the 2020 Sinjar Agreement signed between Baghdad and Erbil, or at a minimum, facilitate the return of displaced families, rebuild critical infrastructure, and ensure stability and security in the area.

“The lack of official attention only deepens the marginalization of the Yazidi community and prolongs its suffering,” she added.

The Yazidis, an ethnoreligious minority primarily based in Iraq’s Nineveh province, were targeted by the ISIS group in 2014 in what the United Nations later recognized as a genocide. Thousands were killed, enslaved, or forced to flee their ancestral lands.