NEWS AND MORE's video: Yazidis in Sinjar bury 104 victims of Islamic State violence

Yazidis in Sinjar bury 104 victims of Islamic State violence Several hundred Yazidis gathered in the village of Kojo on Saturday (January 6) for the first mass burial of Yazidis killed by the Islamic State seven years ago during its brutal onslaught on Sinjar. Amid high security measures, relatives of the victims carried 104 coffins into the village of Kojo, where Yazidis from Iraq and abroad, official delegations and civil society organizations were waiting near a newly-founded cemetery. In 2014, more than 3,000 Yazidis were killed and nearly 7,000 Yazidi women and girls were abducted and sexually abused by Islamic State fighters in northern Iraq, in a campaign described by the United Nations as genocide. The first exhumations of mass graves began in March 2019, led by the United Nations' Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da'esh/ISIL (UNITAD) in collaboration with the Iraqi government. So far, 19 mass graves exhumations were concluded, head of UNITAD, Karim Khan, told Reuters, among the over 80 mass graves found in the area. This return was the first, with 104 bodies brought back to the village of Kojo. The bodies were identified through DNA analysis, after samples taken from the remains found in Kojo were matched with those of relatives. Collecting DNA samples of victim's relatives is a challenge as a large part of Sinjar's Yazidi population is now scattered around Iraq and in different parts of the world, while in some cases, whole families were wiped out by the Islamic State. Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Yazidi activist, Nadia Murad, from the village of Kojo herself, attended the ceremony. Yazidi activist and head of the 'Air Bridge Iraq' organisation, Mirza Dinnayi, said that more steps are needed to ensure justice is done for Yazidi survivors, such as a law granting them recognition and compensation, yet to be signed off by the Iraqi parliament. As the official ceremony came to an end, Yazidi families gathered in private as security forces, officials and the media left the cemetery, to lay their dead to rest. (Production: Charlotte Bruneau)