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Since I arrived here, I haven't taken a moment off, I've always tried to educate myself, I've taken the language up to C1, and I've always worked. And then my Abitur was only recognised as a Fachabitur [technical diploma], so I'm doing my Abitur at an evening school. And I did everything I could to stay here, to find a home here. But they want to deport me – Alia Hassan (in HAWÁR Help, 2023)

2023 marks the year in which the German parliament unanimously recognised the genocide of the Yazidi population in Shingal (kurd.) /Sinjar (arab.) in Iraq: a genocide of a religious minority by the so-called Islamic State (IS, arab. ad-daula al-islāmīya) in August 2014. The genocide marked a horrific turning point for the entire Yazidi population: IS fighters attacked Yazidi men, women and children during and after the genocide, systematically committing mass murder, enslaving women and children, committing sexual violence, separating children from their parents and forcing them to live with IS fighters or selling them as slaves. They enforced conversion to Islam and subjected them to living conditions designed to bring about their slow death.

Because these actions were intended to erase the Yazidi identity and thus their existence as a community, the UN Human Rights Council declared that these acts constituted war crimes and genocide. The subsequent war against IS (2014–2017 in Iraq), which included air strikes on Shingal, one of the epicentres of the 2014 genocide alongside Kocho and Qinieh, destroyed around 80% of the town’s public infrastructure. Yazidi life in Iraq has since been uprooted, with many families having left the country or still living in IDP camps, mostly in the Kurdistan Region. There has been no significant return, particularly to the southern parts of Shingal due to insecurity and the lack of political solutions. Also, nine years after the genocide, IS has been defeated militarily but not ideologically.

2023 is also the year when German federal states have resumed deporting Yazidi families from Germany – i.e., returns against their will – either to countries of first arrival or back to Iraq. For weeks, Yazidis have been protesting outside the German parliament in Berlin, with some going on hunger strikes. So far, without success: On 20 November, a Yazidi family from Bavaria was separated when the parents and two of their children were forcibly relocated to Iraq. The deportation of Yazidi families who have built a life for themselves in Germany is not a responsible choice of policymaking but rather a sign of inconsistency, after the Bundestag’s recognition of the persecution of Yazidis in Iraq and the Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock witnessing the persistently difficult living conditions of Yazidis during her visit in March to Shingal. Instead of deporting individuals like Alia Hassan, who speak German and have trained hard to work, Germany can make a much better contribution by taking a proactive diplomatic stance and pushing for political solutions that allow Yazidis to return to Iraq safely, voluntarily and in dignity.

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This blog post was first published at GAPs Blog on December 14, 2023.

Find out more about our GAPs project: https://www.returnmigration.eu