ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Nearing its closure, the UN body investigating the Islamic State (ISIS) released a detailed report concluding there is sufficient evidence to believe the extremist group committed the gravest crimes of concern against groups in Iraq, particularly the Yazidis.
“The report concludes that UNITAD has reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide were committed,” the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL (UNITAD) said in a statement on Wednesday summarizing the 155-page redacted version of the public report.
UNITAD detailed its final project on Thursday - the "Digitization and Preservation of Da'esh-related Materials" consisting of "over 20 million pages, representing 445,000 case files."
According to UNITAD, the project was supported by 100 Iraqi consultants, adding the collaboration has resulted "in the creation of the world's largest centralized database of ISIL (Da'esh)-related court files and original documents."
Notably the report provides evidence that ISIS “committed genocide against the Yazidi religious group."UNITAD Publishes Detailed Findings of International Crimes, including Genocide, Committed by ISIL (Da’esh) against the #Yazidi Community in #Iraq
— UNITAD (@UNITAD_Iraq) September 11, 2024
Press Release: https://t.co/YNv1P2qCmT
Report: https://t.co/35xUS9gOEz pic.twitter.com/Fi5L4YLEZW
"The crimes committed against the Yazidis of Sinjar..." the report stated, "were committed with the intent to destroy them physically and biologically. Four features of those crimes are compelling manifestations of that intent."
Leaders from the Yazidi civil society have said the end of UNITAD's work will negatively impact the accountability for ISIS crimes and their pursuit of justice.
The report also details the rise, fall, and structure of ISIS, the extremists' attack on Shingal in 2014, ISIS' killings and executions, their slave trade, sexual slavery, and other forms of abuse including rape.
Additionally, the UN report documents investigations of violence against children including their forced conscription by ISIS, the destruction and pillaging of Yazidi cultural sites and public property.
On Tuesday, the UN investigatory team gave Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council President Faiq Zidan “eight reports and packages of underlying evidence, including evidence originally collected by UNITAD,” its Acting Special Adviser Ana Peyro Llopis said in a statement.
The reports present “findings of acts committed” by ISIS from 2014 to 2017 “against victims from wide-ranging communities of Iraqi society, which UNITAD has reasonable grounds to believe amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and, in some cases, genocide.”
Zidan “thanked the team's staff for their efforts during their work period in Iraq,” he said in a statement after the final meeting with Llopis.
UNITAD has shared versions of its findings with local and federal officials across Iraq, including with the Kurdistan Regional Government via Dindar Zebari, coordinator for international advocacy, in late August.
UNITAD was established in 2017 to investigate crimes by ISIS. The investigative team has had a difficult relationship with the Iraqi government over various issues like information-sharing and Baghdad’s usage of capital punishment. Additionally, the United Nations’ Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) has announced it will leave the country in 2025.
A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report in August expressed concern that ending UNITAD’s mission would leave a gap that Baghdad cannot adequately fill.
Thousands of Yazidi families are still unable to return to their homes because of lack of reconstruction and ongoing insecurity, mass graves are still being discovered and exhumed, and 2,596 Yazidis abducted by ISIS in 2014 are still missing, the US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack told Rudaw in an interview last month.
