‘We never accepted surrender:’ the Yezidi women fighting back after genocide
By: Meghan Bodette
Tags: Iraq, Yezidi, Syria, Sinjar

Both organizations adopted their current names in late 2016: YPJ-Şengal became the YJŞ, and the Yezidi Women’s Assembly became the Êzidî Women’s Freedom Movement (TAJE).

The shift reflected growing numbers, expanding political aims, and a commitment to self-defense, self-determination, and freedom for every Yezidi woman impacted by genocide and war that remained strong as ever.

Sinjar city was fully liberated in November 2015, one year and three months after ISIS attacked. But women there still considered armed and civil resistance, against any and all forces that might threaten them, to be inseparable.

As Farida Seido, elected to TAJE’s leadership after its first conference in 2016, told JINHA at the time: “This movement represents the will of all Yezidi women. As the TAJÊ, we see the YJŞ as our military force. YJŞ defends women on the frontlines; we organize women in the civil sphere.”

“Yezidi women need organization and self-defense more than anyone else,” Seido explained. “In order to put an end to the massacres, we have to strengthen ourselves in all areas — to expand our assembly, and also increase our military strength.”

YJŞ commander Dersim Şengal made similar comments. “The reason for the genocide was a lack of organization,” she said.

“For this reason, after the genocide, we quickly decided to organize, and we did organize ourselves in several fields.”

“We can’t, as YJŞ, be separated from the TAJÊ. They are the political wing, we are the military wing. The shared goal is the protection of Yezidi women,” Şengal continued, citing the founding declaration of TAJÊ, which recognized the role of YJŞ in doing just that.

One priority for all organized women in the region was the freedom of the Yezidi women and children still in ISIS captivity. The terror group was losing territory every day, thanks to the efforts of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Rojava and the YBS, YJŞ, and PKK in Sinjar. But by the end of 2016, more than 3,000 of the 7,000 Yezidis abducted in the genocide remained missing. Many, the world knew, were in Raqqa.

ISIS declared the Syrian city of Raqqa to be its capital in 2014, bringing all of its brutality with it. Terror attacks around the world that had drawn international powers into the ISIS fight had been planned there. Public executions were carried out and broadcast globally from its main squares. And the city formed the center of ISIS’ brutal system of slavery, as harrowing accounts from Yezidi survivors revealed to the world.

When the SDF announced Operation Wrath of Euphrates, with the goal of freeing Raqqa and the surrounding regions, its commanders cited the freedom of Yezidi women and girls and the need to avenge the genocide in Sinjar among their central motivations.

“Our main goal with the liberation of Raqqa is the liberation of women. Because ISIS took Raqqa as its capital. It imposed its system there, on women most harshly. We will never forget the attacks of the ISIS gangs against the Yezidi people and Yezidi women,” said Newroz Ahmed, general commander of the YPJ, in an interview during the first weeks of the campaign.

“We’ve said before that the YPJ opened the door for all women in the world. As the YPJ, we are proud that we have become the leading model for women. We have the power and belief to take revenge for all women, Yezidi women in particular.”

Nesrin Abdullah, another senior YPJ commander, reaffirmed this commitment in a New Year’s Day message reflecting on what the group had achieved in 2016 and looking ahead. “Operation Wrath of Euphrates is different from our other campaigns. The YPJ announced that it would take leadership of this campaign for itself,” she said.

“For us, this campaign is revenge for women. For Yezidi women in particular, who were killed and kidnapped and sold as slaves in the markets. It is revenge for the women who were captive under ISIS rule in Raqqa,” Abdullah proclaimed, stating that SDF forces had freed 601 captives so far.

In Iraq, the YJŞ were carrying out their own operations in the name of their missing sisters at the same time. On November 12, 2016, they announced Yezidi participation in efforts to fight ISIS south of Sinjar as the “Campaign of Vengeance for Yezidi Women.” But by the summer of 2017, when SDF forces were preparing to close in around Raqqa city, they knew their next mission was in Syria.

“Ezidi women were sold as slaves in Raqqa,” the YJŞ Media Office says. “The anger of [our forces] against these incidents was great.”

“Just like how before, in Sinjar, the campaign to liberate the villages of Sikeniye, Heyalê, Reska, and Tewre began as the Campaign of Revenge for Êzidî Women, the campaign to liberate Raqqa was the same. It was revenge for Yezidi women. We dedicated victory there to the women taken captive by ISIS.”

On July 3, 2017, the first group of YJŞ fighters announced their participation. A second group joined on August 3rd, exactly three years after the ISIS massacre began.

“On the occasion of the third anniversary of the genocide, we as YJŞ fighters promise that we will continue our fight until no single Êzidî woman remains in ISIS captivity and until all the massacred Êzidî women are avenged,” they said.

To avenge our massacred and burned women and to finish off the ISIS gangs, we are going to light our holy fire in Raqqa this time.”

Their numbers were small, but their participation was more than just symbolic. Many hoped to find loved ones who had been missing since the genocide. Some had survived ISIS captivity themselves.

One fighter, codenamed Heza, was brought to Raqqa along with nearly every woman in her family after they were abducted from their villages in August 2014. She was sold to multiple ISIS members before escaping to SDF territory.

In July 2017, she returned to the city, this time as a member of the YJŞ.

“I stayed in Raqqa for such a long time and saw so much pain, and shared [this pain] with all these [Yezidi] girls and mothers in Raqqa. So, my goal was revenge for them, and freedom from the hands of ISIS. That’s why I joined the armed forces,” she explained in a video interview conducted during the battle.

“With every bullet I shoot in Raqqa, I’m breaking the mentality of ISIS. I take revenge for these women and girls and destroy this brutality. I want to write the history of freedom in this war. We will free the Yezidi girls and women,” she proclaimed.

“I want to see freedom in their eyes. I will give my heart and soul, because our pain was the same, and so I want to make our struggle the same too.”

Heza and her comrades soon got part of their wish. Over the course of the Raqqa campaign, many Yezidi captives were freed. With the support of Yezidi institutions in North and East Syria and the Democratic Autonomous Administration in Sinjar, they were able to return to their families.

Day by day, YPJ and YJŞ flags went up over liberated neighborhoods. On October 19, 2017, female fighters declared the official SDF victory in Raqqa from al-Naim square, where ISIS once carried out slave auctions and beheadings.

“With this struggle of ours, we emancipated and glorified the trampled honor of Êzidî women. We have emancipated thousands of captive Êzidî women and children,” Nesrin Abdullah announced.

She emphasized that this victory belonged to women of many communities: “Arab women who have joined the YPJ during this process declared two battalions under which they participated, and gave a great struggle in the battle for Raqqa. Another battalion from YJŞ also took an active role and avenged their people in this campaign.”

The victory statement from SDF General Command commended Yezidi fighters as well: “We offer our gratitude to all the forces and groups under the SDF umbrella and who supported the SDF: the Shengal Women’s Units — YJŞ, Shengal Resistance Units — YBŞ, Asayish and Self Defense Forces, Popular Defense Forces, HPC, and internationalist brigades.”

In a world where few perpetrators face justice for even the most brutal of war crimes, this small group of genocide survivors had taken matters into their own hands and prevailed. Fighting shoulder to shoulder with men and women who practiced different faiths and spoke different languages, but who shared the goal of crushing ISIS and its fundamentalist vision, the YJŞ contingent in Raqqa turned “never again” from a platitude into a reality.

It would have been a fitting end to their story. But the YJŞ units who had fought in Raqqa returned to Sinjar, they were coming back to a homeland that the world, for all its horror at what ISIS had done, had abandoned to new challenges.