Canadian efforts to help Yazidi refugees adjust to their new life

Shafaq News / Canadian website Calgary Journal published today a report about Yazidi refugees who face debilitating mental and physical struggles as they try to adjust to life in Canada. 

The Yazidi are an ethno-religious minority from Northern Iraq and Syria that primarily speak Kurmanji. Refugees that made it to Canada are survivors of Daesh, which is the Arabic acronym for ISIS. Daesh have been persecuting the Yazidis for decades now, killing and kidnapping thousands of people.

In 2016, thousands of Yazidis were freed or fled captivity. Over the next two years, Canada resettled around 1,400 refugees, including in Calgary.

Refugee Health YYC is an organization that researches the mental health impacts on refugee communities, specifically the Yazidi refugees. They take statistics, such as family separation, and see how many refugees have experienced it. They also look at what types of mental health issues the specific issue has caused, use that research to find ways to support and help them overcome the traumas associated.

Nour Hassan, a research assistant with the Refugee Health YYC, presented her research in a webinar series about immigrant and refugee mental health this past November. The webinar series was hosted by the Center for Addiction and Mental Health.

Hassan has been working with the local Yazidi refugee community to help them understand and improve their mental health.

“Daesh killed 5,000 Yazidis. They kidnapped 7,000 and then held [them] captive,” Hassan said. “[They] were subjected to horrible atrocities, including rape, torture and enslavement.”

Source: Calgary Journal