Belgium, Netherlands Join Probe Into Crimes Against Yazidis in Syria and Iraq

Belgium and The Netherlands have joined an international investigation into atrocities committed against the Yazidi minority in Syria and Iraq, the European Union’s judicial cooperation agency, Eurojust, announced on Monday.

The joint investigation team to identify and prosecute foreign extremists who targeted Yazidis during the armed conflict in Syria and Iraq was established by France and Sweden in October 2021 and is supported by the Hague-based Eurojust.

Eurojust said the probe had already borne fruit, including in France, where a Yazidi victim of a French jihadist couple was identified, leading to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity being added to an existing case against the French couple.

The joint investigation team is part of a broader international effort to mete out justice for atrocities targeting the Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking minority group considered heretics by the extremist Islamic State group, which conquered large swaths of the region a decade ago. Thousands of Yazidi women and girls were abducted and forced into sexual slavery by Islamic State militants and adherents, and thousands of Yazidi men were killed.

Last week, a 37-year-old German woman who had joined Islamic State was convicted of keeping a Yazidi woman as a slave during her time with the group and was sentenced to nine years and three months in prison.

In February, the authorities in the Netherlands announced that they were prosecuting a Dutch woman who joined Islamic State in 2015 and allegedly held a Yazidi woman as a slave.