Global Focus

Yazidis gathered in the north of Paris to commemorate the genocide which began on 3 August 2014. The survivors and their children are refugees in France. They all have a vivid memory of that day when they left a part of themselves in the Sinjar mountains. The laughter and shouts of children playing on the narrow stretch of green grass liven up the Nelson Mandela Sports Centre in Sarcelles. They are playing next to the only monument in France commemorating the beginning of the Yazidi genocide on 3 August 2014. The town of Sarcelles, north of Paris, inaugurated the memorial on 22 May 2019.Not far away, there are two other monuments commemorating the Armenian and Assyrian genocides. The Yazidi children are blissfully unaware of the sombre occasion; the adults have gathered to remember the beginning of the Yazidi genocide which took place in Sinjar region in north eastern Iraq.Thousands were killed by the Islamic State armed group who regarded the Yazidis as heretics. The women were raped and enslaved. The boys w