Remember the Yazidi, the ethnic/religious minority that the Islamic State tried to wipe off the face of the earth?
It turns out that Muslims are still attacking them in European refugee camps:
“One hundred and thirty Yazidis arrived to Petra just last night from Cherso camp. Muslims were attacking them.”
Petra is the only refugee camp in Greece exclusively for Yazidis, a religious minority in Iraq who have suffered brutal treatment at the hands of ISIS. After the borders closed in March, about 3,500 Yazidis were trapped in Greece. Petra was created around that time to house about 800 Yazidis who were being harassed by some Muslim refugees in Idomeni, on the Greece-Macedonia border.
But because of ongoing situations like the one at Cherso, its numbers have swelled to almost double that amount.
Snip.
Ezidi updates me on recent incidents in various camps where Yazidis have been harassed by Muslims.
Besides the refugees from Cherso, they are very worried about a group of 200 Yazidis in Katsika camp. “I talked with an old man. He was crying and begging for help.” Ezidi says the man told her the harassment was so bad that the Yazidis where afraid to go to the area where they could charge their phones. It was also dangerous for them to go to the bathroom. Several Yazidis at both camps were punched or attacked at knife point.
The Yazidis at Katsika eventually left the camp on their own with no clear destination. More recently, another group of Yazidis left Nea Kavala camp because they felt unsafe. Yazidis have been attacked in the detention center on Leros island, as well.
It’s difficult to get comprehensive data on violence against Yazidis in Greece. “We are aware of what Yazidis have been through and that they are subject to harsh forms of persecution,” a UNHCR spokesperson told me. “If and when we are approached, we try to be of help.” But UNHCR doesn’t keep stats on refugees by religious group and the group doesn’t monitor Yazidis specifically. I was able to confirm the incidents at Cherso, Katsika and Nea Kavala with the UNHCR — but it’s generally the network of Yazidi refugees and activists inside and outside of Greece who have the most up-to-date information.
“We get calls daily from Yazidis at other camps asking for help,” Ezidi says.
The Yazidi are real refugees, and had the current wave of “refugees” flooding Europe been of their ilk, very little opposition would have arisen. But given that a disproportionate number of the so-called refugees are young men of military age, and which contain a strong Islamist component, that’s obviously not the case.
Tags: Border Controls, Greece, Iraq, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jihad, Syria, Yazidi