YPJ: Yazidi women's struggle is a response to massacres and traitors

YPJ General Command issued a statement recalling the martyrs of the Yazidi massacre of the Yazidi community on August 3^rd, 2014.

The text of the statement reads:
"On the seventh anniversary of the 74 massacres perpetrated against the Yazidi people in Shengal, we recall all the martyrs of the massacre and all the heroes who sacrificed their lives to protect our Yazidi people from the brutality and barbarism of ISIS terrorist gangs, we pay tribute for those who sacrificed themselves.

Since the span of history and to this day, our Yazidi people had been subjected to massacres and genocides many times. Where the terrorist gangs of the terrorist organization ISIS backed by the Turkish occupation state and the dominant forces launched attacks on the Yazidi community in Shengal on August 3^rd, 2014, armed with a fascist and racist mentality, with the aim of eliminating its culture and history. Where many of our women, children, and elderly were killed, raped, and kidnapped with a brutality that is considered disgraceful and sold them in the slave markets in a manner contrary to morals and human conscience, because of the betrayal of the Barzani family and their abandonment of their people and their failure to protect them.

But 12 of our heroes, students of leader Abdullah Ocalan and hundreds of our comrades, whose hearts are full of determination, and love for the homeland, went to Shengal, the source of human culture, with an unprecedented legendary heroism that saved our Yazidi people from the ruthlessness and brutality of the ISIS terrorist organization, which killed the people and spread darkness and terrorist thought. With the liberation of the holy Shengal, our Yazidi people organized themselves willingly and established their own administrations and institutions to manage themselves. The key point is that women and youth in the region have formed their own Self-Protection Force called Shengal Resistance Units (YBŞ) and Shengal Women's Units (YJŞ).

But the Iraqi government, the Kurdistan Regional Government and its ally the Turkish occupation state and its mafia gangs and terrorist mercenaries cannot bear this stability and this will that characterizes the Autonomous Administration in Shengal, so attacks are launched against it by various means and methods, so we will resist till the last breath to protect their culture and presence.

The statement continued: All peoples have the right to legitimately defend themselves against the attacks of the occupiers, and the Shengal people reinforce their existence and identity through their defensive forces. The entire world must therefore recognize the Autonomous Administration of Shengal and know that the existence of the Yazidi people is the existence of societies, and that the independent of the Autonomous Administration of the Yazidi people is the free future of the peoples.

Shengal Women's Units (YJŞ) forces also fought alongside the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) in Raqqa, which was a center for ISIS terrorist gangs. In Deir-ez-Zor city, our forces in the Women’s Protection Units, YPJ the People’s Protection Units, YPG, and the Syrian Democratic Forces, SDF struggled side by side in the campaign to eliminate the ISIS terrorist organization and achieved a victory that history witnesses. Hundreds of Yazidi women were rescued from the hands of gangs and revenge for the victims and martyrs of the massacre. Of course, this victory was achieved with the unity of the spirit of the woman who insists on freedom, and today this spirit is strengthened and poses a great threat to the occupying forces. In order to defend these gains and achievements, we renew our commitment to avenging women

On this basis, we reiterate our pledge to the martyrs of freedom, the mothers of the martyrs, all the Yazidi women and people who were subjected to massacres and made martyrs, that we will achieve a free homeland for them, and that our pledge will escalate our struggle.

T/S

ANHA