In the early morning hours of August 3, 2014, the extremist "Islamic State," or IS, group attacked communities in northern Iraq that were home to the ethno-religious Yazidi minority.
Yazidi men were executed on the spot and women and children were captured, with thousands eventually being sold into slavery.
By 2017, the IS group was declared defeated in Iraq. Today, most members are either dead, imprisoned, or in hiding. But many Yazidis are still waiting for justice.
There have been positive developments over the past decade, Murad Ismael, head of the Sinjar Academy, an institute in northern Iraq for Yazidi education, told DW.
That includes the resettlement of Yazidi survivors in third countries and international court cases trialing former IS members, he said. It also includes international recognition that IS committed genocide against the Yazidi and the Iraqi government's Yazidi Survivors Law of 2021. That legislation offers reparation of sorts to abused Yazidi women, including a monthly income of around $500.
But there's still more to be done, Ismael and others argue. Of around 7,000 Yazidis captured by the IS group, 2,600 are still unaccounted for and mass graves are still being exhumed around Iraq.
And things are not looking so positive for the ongoing pursuit of justice. "I think the world, including Iraq, is now moving beyond the IS chapter altogether," Ismael said.
Unfortunately this year, the Yazidi suffered another serious setback: the........