For Iraq’s ISIS Targets, Urgent Need for Aid and Security
Video Interview with USIP Expert Sarhang Hamasaeed
The recent U.S. designation of genocide to describe the ISIS extremist group’s killings and persecution of minorities as well as Shia Muslims in Iraq and Syria highlighted the long history of oppression of religious and ethnic groups and the questions looming about whether religious minorities especially can survive in the region, according to USIP Senior Program Officer Sarhang Hamasaeed.
Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman who escaped from ISIS in 2014, described the suffering of minorities in lands under the control of the extremist group, as she testified last month in a hearing before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Murad said the U.S. must fight more aggressively against ISIS, a group that considers itself a protector of Sunni Muslims and is also known as ISIL or “Islamic State” or the Arabic acronym Daesh, lest it continue to organize or inspire attacks such as the one in Orlando, Florida, in June, according to an account of her testimony on CNN. Murad also advocated establishing a safe or protected zone for religious minorities in Iraq and Syria.
Hamasaeed, an Iraqi Kurd who helps lead USIP’s work in Iraq and was himself forced to flee his home by Saddam Hussein’s forces in the early 1990s, testified before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations on the ramifications of the U.S. genocide declaration on March 17. Secretary of State John Kerry, who announced the decision in a statement, said, “In my judgment, Daesh is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yazidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims. Daesh is genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology, and by actions.” While Yazidis and Christians are among the country’s minority groups, the majority of Iraqis are Shia Muslims.
In the following interview, conducted after his testimony, Hamasaeed outlines the threats to Iraq’s minorities and others displaced by the conflict:
- An urgent need for humanitarian assistance;
- The likelihood of a long-term displacement and possible tensions with the communities hosting them;
- Even after areas are recaptured from ISIS control, displaced people will have to overcome many hurdles for a safe return home, including destroyed infrastructure, unexploded improvised explosive devices, scarce resources and the potential for revenge violence.
The Iraqi people, government and international community will need to work towards stabilization and reconciliation to ensure that those displaced by the conflict can return safely and stay for the long term, he says.
