Yazidis

Iraqi army helicopter takes off at a base in Sinjar, Iraq, Tuesday, May 3, 2022. 

Iraq’s Yazidis stuck in ‘tug-of-war’ between regional armed groups

Violence

Recent fighting between the Iraqi army and a local militia in heavily populated civilian areas has led to the displacement of an estimated 10,000 people. 

Yazidi women

Yazidi woes drag on after ISIS defeat as religious persecution worsens globally

A Yazidi man stands by a field of green on a sunny day.

Yazidi farmers return home to cultivate farmland after years in exile

Conflict & Justice
Nadia Murad gestures with her hands against a blue sky.

Yazidi women still fear ISIS months after their defeat

Conflict & Justice
This is a combined composition with two portraits: Yazidi survivor Nadia Murad on the left and Denis Mukwege on the right.

Congolese doctor, Yazidi activist win Nobel Peace Prize for combating sexual violence

Members of the Noh family in Ritsona refugee camp in Greece in May 2016.

This Yazidi family escaped genocide in Iraq. Their next challenge is building a life in France.

Conflict

The Noh family fled Iraq when ISIS invaded in 2014. After crossing the Mediterranean in a rubber dinghy, they reached the Greek island of Lesbos, and then mainland Europe. After receiving asylum in France, they are building a new life in a unfamiliar place.

Yazidi rebaptism ceremony in Iraq

Photos: Yazidi women undergo a rebirth ceremony after ISIS enslavement

Conflict

When ISIS invaded northern Iraq, they captured many Yazidi women, forced them to convert to Islam and traded them as sex slaves. The Yazidi community granted photographer Marcio Pimenta rare access to capture moving images of the reintegration process for freed women rejoining the group.

Children play with a kite at a shelter for displaced Yazidis on Mount Sinjar, northern Iraq.

Years after US Iraq intervention, Yazidis are still seeking safety on a mountain

Conflict

In 2014, the plight of Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar to flee genocide prompted Barack Obama to launch America’s first new round of airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq. Now Yazidis are back up the mountain, escaping different sorts of clashes.

Mizgin, a Syrian refugee from Aleppo, and her family are living with Rachel Miller's family for the year.

For this Syrian Yazidi family and their Jewish hosts, Passover is a refugee story

Conflict

This year, Rachel Miller’s family in the Boston area is sharing the Jewish holiday of Passover with a Syrian family living with them for the year.

Capt. Khatoon Khider, left, commander of the all-female Yazidi Sun Brigade, with her sister, Aliya, in a home near the city of Dohuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan, on Sept. 24.

These Yazidi sisters took up arms to take revenge against ISIS

Conflict

Khatoon Khider used to sing folk songs about the suffering of her people, the Yazidi religious minority. After ISIS overran her hometown in northern Iraq, she put down her tambur instrument and picked up a gun, forming the first all-female Yazidi peshmerga battalion to fight the militant group.