Two Yazidis go on hunger strike in central Yerevan

Sashik Sultanyan, the head of the public organization "Centre for Interethnic and Intercultural Cooperation", and Rustam Bakoyan, the head of the humanitarian organization "Shams", are holding a three-day hunger strike in front of the Yerevan Office of the United Nations.

As stated by the hunger-strikers, their action aims "to demand from the UN to make every effort to stop the massacre of Yazidis in Northern Iraq." The activists also demanding that "the UN assisted in the release of about nine thousand Yazidis held captive."

According to Bakoyan, "captured Yazidi women are sold at Arabic marketplace at the price from 15 to 200 US dollars for a woman."

Bakoyan and Sultanyan demand from the UN Security Council to take measures to "establish autonomy in the district of Shangala (a Yazidi town in Northern Iraq, also known as Sindzhar, – note of the "Caucasian Knot") to ensure security of Yazidis of Northern Iraq." In their autonomy, Yazidis will de able to protect their territory and people, the hunger-strikers believe.

They also stressed the need to improve living conditions in the camp for Yazidi refugees.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in May 2015, Fakhir Kamal, the spiritual leader of Yazidis of the city of Mosul, addressed to the Armenian authorities with an appeal to protect Yazidis in Iraq, having compared the events there with the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.