Cultural and Historical Foundations of Ezidiness

On August 3rd, 2014, Ezidis living in the mountains of Shingal, Iraq experienced the culmination of a years-long campaign of persecution against them by Daesh (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant)12. In under two weeks, thousands of Ezidis were killed or kidnapped, and almost half of the global population of Ezidis was forcibly displaced.13 The largest group of Ezidis in the world came to live in and around Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camps across the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), under the protection of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).