In the town of Aknalich, the Yazidi people are marking the New Year, as their calendar turns to 6771. The National News published an article about the Yezidi community living in Armenia.
Aknalich has always been a centre of Armenia’s Yazidi people who, with a population of about 35,000, are the country’s largest ethnic minority. It took on new significance in 2019 when the largest Yazidi temple in the world was unveiled there.
Along with everyone else in the country, members of the Yazidi community fought in last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh. In 44 days, at least 16 local Yazidis were killed.
The Yazidi people are no strangers to tragedy. Their histories hold that they have been the victims of 74 genocides, most recently at the hands of ISIS in 2014, in northern Iraq. Another of those genocides came at the same time as that of the Armenians, in 1915.
At the same time that Armenian villages in eastern Anatolia were being systematically killed by Ottoman troops, the nearby Yazidi populace was also suffering reprisals. Many sought refuge in the lands that now form Armenia, laying the basis for much of today’s community. Turks tried to force Yazidi to convert to Islam but they didn’t accept. Last year they tried it again.
For the Yazidis last year, there was no question as to whether they would stand beside their Armenian neighbors on the battlefield. Yazidis say that Armenia is their country too and it was under attack. They were proud to stand with their Armenian brothers.
The newspaper quotes the words of one of the representatives of the Yezidi community: “We are an ancient people but we don’t have a state. In the 2014 genocide (in Iraq), over 100,000 Yazidis became refugees. It makes you appreciate safe places like Armenia. This is the only country in the world where Yazidis are taught at school in their own language. All our rights are protected here. We can preserve our culture, our religion, our identity.”
The Yezidi community is sure that they have a future in Armenia.
