Armenian MPs observe minute of silence for Yazidi genocide victims

Armenian Members of Parliament observed a minute of silence during Monday’s plenary session in memory of the victims of the 2014 Yazidi genocide in Sinjar, Iraq.

The proposal was made by Rustam Bakoyan, an ethnic Yazidi MP from the ruling Civil Contract faction.

“On August 3, 2014, the massacre of an entire nation took place — a genocide. This was a great tragedy for the Yazidi people, and what happened in 2014 is still continuing today: Yazidi girls, women, and our mothers are being sold in Arab markets. To this day, the fate of around 3,000 Yazidi women remains unknown; tens of thousands have been killed, tens of thousands of women have been sold in markets, and even now, nearly 12 years later, they remain in camps. I would like to ask you to honor the memory of the Yazidis of Sinjar who were victims of genocide with a minute of silence,” Bakoyan said in his speech.

The Yazidi genocide took place in August 2014 in Sinjar, Iraq, the historical homeland of the Yazidi people. The mass killings of Yazidis were carried out by ISIL terrorists after the group seized parts of northern Iraq in the summer of 2014 and declared an “Islamic caliphate” in the territories under its control. ISIL massacred thousands of Yazidis, while many young girls were subjected to sexual slavery. As a result of the genocide, around 200,000 Yazidis were displaced from northern Iraq.

In 2018, Armenia’s parliament recognized and condemned the genocide committed against Yazidis in Sinjar in 2014.