2,200+ Yazidi survivors get monthly salaries under Iraqi Law

Shafaq News – Baghdad

2,216 Yazidi survivors and their families are receiving monthly stipends under Iraq’s Yazidi Survivors Law, a senior Iraqi official confirmed on Monday.

Iraq is home to an estimated 500,000 Yazidis, most of whom live in Sinjar in Nineveh province and northern Duhok. The community was targeted by ISIS in 2014 in a campaign of extermination that left thousands killed and many women and children enslaved, forcing tens of thousands to flee to the Kurdistan Region and Syria.

During a Human Rights Day event in Baghdad, Zidan Al-Atwani, human rights adviser to caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, outlined that efforts to resolve the missing persons file remain ongoing, with new databases under development to clarify the fate of those still unaccounted for.

Official records list 663 Yazidis and members of other communities as missing, while government data indicates 662 registered cases, with several individuals later located.

Al-Atwani also described a range of measures introduced during Al-Sudani’s tenure. These included new human rights frameworks, upgrades to prison and detention conditions coordinated with the justice and interior ministries, as well as the rollout of programs targeting survivors of terrorism.

Over the past three years, he added, the advisory office has worked to reinforce human rights practices across state institutions, while also handling the files of displaced people and families of the missing.

Earlier today, Al-Sudani reaffirmed his government’s commitment to supporting Yazidis and other communities, safeguarding their rights, and rebuilding affected areas during a meeting with Hazem Tahseen Beyk, the Yazidi leader in Iraq and worldwide.

Read more: A decade of suffering: Yazidis still seeking justice after ISIS atrocities