UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...
UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...
UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...
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Estimates of the number of Yazidis range from 100,000 to as many as 800,000 people.<br />
Yazidis can mainly be found in Iraq, Syria and Turkey. 356 Only about ten percent of the<br />
Yazidis live in the Kurdish-administered areas, mainly in the Governorate of Dahuk,<br />
whereas the majority lives in so-called “disputed areas” in the Governorate of Ninewa, in<br />
particular in the areas of Jebel Sinjar and Shekhan, which have been subjected to the<br />
former regimes’ Arabization campaigns. 357 Jebel Sinjar was depopulated in 1965, 1973-<br />
1975 and 1986-1987, and the Yazidi residents of some 400 villages were forced to live in<br />
“collective towns”. 358 Their villages were either destroyed or given to Arab settlers. The<br />
Shekhan area was arabized as of 1975. 359 The Kurdish authorities have made it clear that<br />
they consider these areas as “Kurdish” and wish to incorporate them into the Region of<br />
Kurdistan. 360 Small Yazidi communities can also be found in urban settings, e.g. in the<br />
cities of Dahuk, Mosul and Baghdad. Yazidis also used to live in other cities of central and<br />
southern Iraq, e.g. in Hilla, Basrah and Nassriyah. 361<br />
The Yazidi religion is closed to outsiders as Yazidis do not intermarry, not even Kurds, nor<br />
do they accept converts. Accordingly, important parts of the Yazidi religious rituals have<br />
never been seen by outsiders and are, therefore, unknown. The Yazidis have never been<br />
Kurdische Studien, October 2005, p. 9-10, http://www.yeziden-colloquium.de/inhalt/gesellschaft/recht/<br />
Savelsberg_Hajo_Gutachten.pdf.<br />
355 Yazidis in Jebel Sinjar often speak Arabic; see Savelsberg and Hajo, ibidem, p. 11-12; Christine Allison,<br />
Yazidis, The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies, http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Religions/iranian/yazidis.htm,<br />
last modified 26 January 2007.<br />
356 The Religious Freedom Report puts their number at 650,000; see: USDOS, International Religious<br />
Freedom Report 2006 – Iraq, see above footnote 28. The Encyclopaedia Britannica estimates that there are<br />
less than 100,000 Yazidis in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Armenia, the Caucasus and Iran; see: Encyclopaedia<br />
Britannica, Yazidi, http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9383110/Yazidi [accessed January 2007]. The<br />
Encyclopaedia of the Orient provides a number of more than 700,000, including 500,000 in Iraq, 50,000 in<br />
Turkey and 30,000 in Syria; see: Encyclopaedia of the Orient, Yazidism, see above footnote 353. The Yazidi<br />
website Dengê Êzîdiyan claims that there are as many as 800,000 Yazidis, with around 550,000 in Northern<br />
Iraq; see Dengê Êzîdiyan [in German language], Fragen zum Yezidentum, Die Religion der Yeziden,<br />
http://www.yezidi.org/fragen_yezidentum.0.html [accessed January 2007]; there exists also a significant<br />
Yazidi Diaspora, in particular in Germany. According to the Yeziden Colloquium, more than 40,000 Yazidi<br />
live in Germany; see Yeziden Colloquium [in German language], Wir über uns, http://www.yezidencolloquium.de/ueber_uns.htm<br />
[accessed January 2007].<br />
357 See “De-Arabization”.<br />
358 Settlements built by the former regime during the Anfal campaign to which Kurds and others were<br />
forcibly relocated after their villages were destroyed.<br />
359 Irene Dulz, Siamend Hajo and Eva Savelsberg, Verfolgt und umworben: Die Yeziden im »neuen Irak« [in<br />
German language], published in: Kurdische Studien 4+5, 2004/2005, p. 1, http://www.yeziden-colloquium.de/<br />
inhalt/wissenschaft/Dulz_Savelsberg_Hajo_Yeziden.pdf.<br />
360 For example, the Unification Agreement of 21 January 2006, states the aim of “restoring Kirkuk,<br />
Khanaqin, Sinjar, Makhmour, and other Arabized areas to the embrace of the Kurdistan Region”; KRG,<br />
Kurdistan Regional Government Unification Agreement, 21 January 2006, http://www.krg.org/<br />
articles/article_detail.asp?LangNr=12&RubricNr=107&ArticleNr=8891&LNNr=28&RNNr=70. The draft<br />
Constitution for the Region of Kurdistan enshrines in Article 2(I): “Iraqi Kurdistan comprises the<br />
Governorate of Duhok within its present boundary, and the governorates of Kirkuk, Sulaimani, and Arbil with<br />
the 1968 borders and the districts (kaza) of Akre, Shaikhan, Sinjar, Tel Afar, Tilkef, Qaragosh and the sub<br />
districts (nahiya) of Zamar, Ba’shiqa, Aski Kalak in the Governorate of Nineveh and the districts of Khanaqin<br />
and Mandali in the Governorate of Diyali and the district of Badra and the subdistrict of Jassan in the<br />
Governorate of Wasit.”<br />
361 Savelsberg and Hajo, p. 6, see above footnote 354.<br />
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