ERBIL — The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has made significant efforts to recognize the tragedy of Sinjar as genocide against Yezidis, while focusing on rescuing the abducted members of the minority group, an official said.

During an exclusive interview with BasNews, Hussein Qaidi, the head of the Kurdistan Region's Special Office for Yezidi Abductees Affairs, highlighted that the KRG has meticulously documented thousands of pieces of evidence, demonstrating its commitment to addressing the issue of the kidnapped Yezidis.

[Below is the interview which was translated from Kurdish and edited for clarity and length.]

BasNews: What is the role of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in the case of the kidnapped Kurdish Yezidis and how many kidnapped people have been rescued and returned to their families so far?

Hussein Qaidi: Only the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has supported the rescue of the Yezidi abductees and has paid great attention to this case. Nine years have passed since the genocide in Sinjar, and work is still underway to rescue the hostages who were kidnapped by Islamic State (IS) terrorists in 2014, but more than 2,000 kidnapped people are still missing and we are continuing to search for them.

BasNews: Why is the fate of the 2,000 kidnapped people still unknown? Are they still alive?

Hussein Qaidi: After some areas were liberated from the hands of IS terrorists, several cases were opened to rescue the kidnapped, but some women, girls, and children still remain in the families of IS in Iraq. The reason why these kidnapped people remain among the families of IS and are not rescued is that we are not being helped in Camp al-Hall to rescue these kidnapped people.

BasNews: What are the efforts of the KRG to recognize the Sinjar tragedy as genocide at the international level?

Hussein Qaidi: The KRG has made great efforts to recognize the case of Sinjar as genocide. The KRG has documented thousands of documents with the United Nations and the Kurdistan Region's Special Office for Yezidi Abductees Affairs. The KRG is currently collecting documents and working on them to recognize the Sinjar tragedy as genocide.

BasNews: What has the Iraqi federal government done to rescue the kidnapped Yezidis?

Hussein Qaidi: The Iraqi federal government is indifferent to the issue of the kidnapped Yezidis and the excavation of mass graves. Nine years after the tragedy, Baghdad has excavated only 15 of the 85 mass graves found. There are still Yezidis kidnapped families in Iraq, and Baghdad has no plans to help us rescue them.