The Yazidi community faced one of the most devastating attack of the 21st century when the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) targeted them on 3 August 2014 with the intent of total extermination.​ Hundreds of thousands of Yazidis had to flee for their lives and ten of thousands of defenseless Yazidi civilians found themselves trapped on Mount Sinjar where they faced horrific conditions.

Extremist groups, including ISIS, consider Yazidis as infidels – ​so called ​Kafir or devil-worshippers​, and on this basis, ISIS attacked Yazidis in their homes in Sinjar. Before attacking Yazidis the so-called Islamic State declared in their online magazine, ​Dabiq in October 2014 ​that they referred the Yazidi issue to some of their ‘religious scholars’ for a decision as to what should be done with them. According to Dabiq, ISIS ‘scholars​’ decided that Yazidis are infidels, ​Kafir and need to be eradicated. In the first hours of the attack, ISIS started murdering men, male teenagers and elders and abducting the women and children. The Yazidi women, including prepubescent girls, were then trafficked as sex slaves, ​Sabaia​, or were given to ISIS commanders for this purpose, while the boys were sent to camps to be forced to convert to Islam, indoctrinated with ISIS’s extremist views and given military training. Those who refused or resisted were killed.

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