Syriac Union Party: International community must do more to ensure the security and future of Yezidis and Chaldeans–Syriacs–Assyrians

On the 7th anniversary of the Islamic State (ISIS) attack on Shengal (Sinjar) and the Nineveh Plains in Iraq, the Syriac Union Party (SUP) in Syria released a statement commemorating the victims and calling for more to be done to rebuild the region and ensure the future of Yezidis and Chaldeans–Syriacs–Assyrians in their ancestral lands.

********** STATEMENT **********

One of the several massacres and annihilation committed by the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq, was its attack on the Shengal (Sinjar) area on August 3, 2014. Three days later, ISIS attacked and occupied the Nineveh Plain region. ISIS targeted the Yezidi people and the Chaldean–Syriac–Assyrian people and committed the most heinous crimes against these safe peoples, including killing, displacement and captivity of women. This added new suffering, as well as ethnic and religious cleansing practiced against these components, after the many previous exterminations that they were subjected to throughout history.

Today, we remember these massacres against these two indigenous peoples and against many other peoples. After years of liberating their areas, they are still living in a state of instability and lack of interest in the dossier of their compensation, as they suffered moral, material, human and economic damage. The most important of all, we see the continued marginalization of their political will and its absence from the Iraqi political arena. In addition to the failure to activate the constitutional articles concerned with them and their regions. This is another type of genocide which leads for their migration (displacement) and uproots them from their historical land.

We in the Syriac Union Party in Syria stress the importance of the indigenous components in Syria and Iraq, including our Syriac (Aramean–Assyrian–Chaldean) people, and the full recognition of their political, economic, social, cultural and religious rights. The negative policies practiced against them with the aim of ending their presence in the region and the Middle East in general must stop, and a new culture devoted to coexistence and acceptance of the other must be created.

In the face of these gross challenges, local governments must abide by the international laws concerned with human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples, and provide them with special support locally and internationally in order to ensure their security and stability. In addition to ensuring that they are not exposed to any form of genocide and persecution, now and in the future.

Mercy and eternity to the righteous martyrs

Freedom and victory for the peoples

Syria, on 02/08/2021

Syriac Union Party

Executive Body

********************