[ad_1]
The National reported on the Kojo massacre as Yazidis commemorated the tenth anniversary of the massacre committed by ISIS terrorists on August 15, 2014.
The report quoted massacre survivor Naif Jasso as saying he lived in the remote Yazidi village of Kojo, which was founded by his father, but he happened to be in the city of Dohuk in early August. In 2014, when ISIS invaded northern Iraq, the Times noted that his brother Ahmed was the village chief and received a call from him on August 3, in which he said that officials in the village near the peak of Mount Sinjar told him that the terrorists, the Islamic State, were carrying out mass killings and imprisonment of women and children.
Jasso added that days later his brother Ahmed was killed along with many villagers, and ISIS almost wiped Kocho off the map in what was later considered one of the worst crimes in the genocide against the Yazidi religious minority.
Jasso said he spent days pleading with anyone, including the Iraqi government, to reach a deal to save the village, but three years later, after fighting to liberate Kocho from Islamic State occupation, he was able to return.
Reports say that the survivors of the massacre mourned in a newly built cemetery on the ruins of the abandoned village, surrounded by mass graves, where a total of 511 villagers were confirmed dead or still missing, of whom 151 bodies have been identified and buried.
The report noted that while most people from the Sinjar region remain in refugee camps in the Kurdish region, more are returning to their former homes – with the exception of Kojo, where plans to build a new village were announced three years ago.
[ad_2]
Source link
