With a report published today, PRO ASYL and Wadi are drawing attention to the dire situation of the Yazidis in Iraq – and at the same time are calling for an immediate stop to deportations from Germany for Yazidis. In addition, Yazidis must be given a permanent and secure perspective in Germany.
Although the German Bundestag recognized the persecution of Yazidis as genocide at the beginning of 2023, and despite the situation in Iraq being very uncertain, several federal states have been deporting Yazidis to Iraq again for the past several months. Now thousands of Yazidis in Germany fear that the same thing will happen to them.
“It is completely irresponsible to deport Yazidi men, women and children to a country where they have no livelihood and cannot lead a safe life. To be deported to the country of genocide, where they meet former perpetrators and have to feel constantly threatened. That’s why there must be an immediate nationwide ban on deportations for Yazidis so that thousands of Yazidis don’t have to continue to live in fear of deportation,” says Karl Kopp, managing director of PRO ASYL.
The Federal Government must take responsibility
PRO ASYL and Wadi are calling on the German Federal Government to finally take responsibility and create clarity. Whether Yazidis are deported or not should not be left to individual Federal States.
The report describes, that since the genocide of the Yazidis by the terrorist organization ‘Islamic State’ in 2014, the Sinjar area in northern Iraq, where Yazidis have lived for centuries, has become a dangerous hotspot. Ten years after the genocide: On the situation of the Yazidis and Yazidis in Iraq the report describes how state and non-state actors fight ruthlessly for power and influence in the strategically important border area between Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran, how interests collide – and that the Yazidis are in the middle and between all fronts. The bleak reality that ten years on 200,000 Yazidis are still waiting in Iraqi refugee camps with no prospect of leaving. The talk of a so-called internal Iraqi escape alternative also misses reality because a Yazidi family could not go to another part of the country: there they would be without the vital protection that comes from living as a community.
No deportions back to the country of genocide
“People who have been recognized as victims of genocide must not be deported to the country where the genocide occurred. If the Bundestag in Berlin recognizes a genocide a few hundred meters from the Holocaust memorial, it should take the resulting responsibility seriously. This would also be an important signal for other European countries. Germany must give the Yazidis security, especially after recognizing them as victims of genocide,” says Thomas von der Osten-Sacken, managing director of Wadi.
Counting around 250,000 people, Germany not only has the largest Yazidi diaspora in Europe, but is also the second largest in the world after Iraq. They live mainly in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. It is estimated that between 5,000 to 10,000 Iraqi Yazidis are currently at risk of deportation to Iraq. In mid-2023, the first federal states began deporting Yazidis to Iraq in light of increasing cooperation with Iraq and court rulings that there was no longer any group-specific persecution in Iraq.
Reports as a source for decision-making for authorities and courts
The report published by PRO ASYL and Wadi in German and English relates the tragic situation of the Yazidi community in Iraq and the background to it,including the conflicts within Iraq – it’s compact and comprehensive. The two organizations want to close an information gap and create a basis for qualified decisions. Because authorities and courts continue to decide about the future of Yazidi people while ignoring the dramatic situation into which they send these people.
The report is also about the Yazidis as a group, how their livelihoods were systematically destroyed – and how this is also what genocide is about. How this distinguishes them from many others from the Middle East who are fleeing war and destruction: The Islamic State wanted to not only to kill Yazidis, but destroy Yazidis from existence. With each deportation, the fear grows that not only individuals will be forcibly torn from their new home and sent into an uncertain future, but that the Yazidi collective existence is also threatened here in Germany.
For many months, Yazidi and other organizations such as PRO ASYL and Wadi have been calling for a stop to deportations for Yazidis, including an open letter to members of the Bundestag.
The report can be downloaded in German and English.
Contact:
PRO ASYL, press office, presse@proasyl.de, Phone: +49 (0)69 24 23 14 30
Wadi e.V., Thomas von der Osten-Sacken, Managing Director, thomas.osten-sacken@wadi-online.de, Phone: +49 (0)151 56906002