Report: ISIS Guilty of Genocide against Yazidis

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum says the Islamic State is not only guilty of terrorism, but also of genocide. 

A new report, 'Our Generaftion is Gone': The Islamic's Targeting of Iraqi Minorities in Nineveh, says ISIS is trying to wipe out the Yazidi people in northern Iraq.

"We believe Islamic State has been and is perpetrating genocide against the Yazidi people," the report stated. "Islamic State's stated intent and patterns of violence against Shia Shabak and Shia Turkmen also raise concerns about the commission and risk of genocide against these groups."

The terror group has also kidnapped and killed thousands of other religious minorities, including Christians.

The report examines the plight of hundreds of thousands of Yazidis, Christians and others who lived in displacement camps after fleeing ISIS in 2014.
 
"We've seen that the region has been essentially entirely cleansed of its religious and ethnic minorities in the span of 3 months" said Cameron Hudson, director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. "We detail more than 800,000 religious minorities being driven from the region."

The museums press release states that ISIS destroyed shrines, temples, and churches and  today, virtually no members of the targeted communities remain in Ninewa province. 

Naomi Kikoler, deputy director of the Simon-Skjodt Center, traveled to northern Iraq to document the plight of religious minorities in the country.

"These communities continue to be at risk," Kikoler said. "We have hundreds of thousands of people that are currently living in Iraqi Kurdistan in desperate conditions. They cannot return home at this time because the Islamic State stil holds much of their land."
 
The report says the Islamic State is the first terrorist organization to commit genocide. It also cited the huge number of displaced people in critical need of humanitarian aid as winter sets in.