Armenia of late has gotten involved helping Diaspora Armenian communities caught in the crossfire of civil war in Syria. Now, some Armenian citizens want Yerevan to offer the same kind of help to their kin in another regional hot spot, Iraq.
The Yezidis, a Kurdish-speaking people who are Armenia’s largest minority, hope that Yerevan will raise the awareness of the plight of Iraq’s Yezidis around the world. Iraqi Yezidis now face violent attacks for selling alcohol. Iraqi laws only allow non-Muslims to sell alcoholic beverages and the country has witnessed a series of deadly militia attacks on liquor stores run by Christians and Yezidis.
Sasha Sultanian, head of Armenia's Yezidi National Committee, has announced that the group plans to ask the Armenian foreign affairs and Diaspora ministries to promote awareness of the Iraqi Yezidis' situation "in international organizations and [help] prevent the massacres," Armradio reported.
“Our brothers are being killed in Iraq,” Armenpress reported Sultanian as saying on August 14 “The governments of Kurdistan and Iraq aim to destroy the Yezidis living in Iraq and take over their lands."
Several hundred thousand Yezidis are estimated to live around the world; the largest number in Iraq. Their religion is a blend of Zoroastrian, Muslim, Christian and other religious traditions. The central figure in the faith is a peacock angel Malek Taus, who dispenses both blessings and misfortunes as he finds fit.
Ethnic Yezidis together with ethnic Armenians bore the brunt of the World-War I-era slaughters in southeastern Ottoman Turkey. Many fled to Armenia and Georgia to escape persecution. Sultanian expressed hope that Armenia, given its past, will not stay indifferent to the targeted violence against another ethnic group.
Yerevan has not yet indicated whether or to what extent it might choose to stick its head out for the Yezidis of Iraq.
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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