ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Over 2,000 Yazidi women who survived the Islamic State (ISIS) genocide a decade ago are receiving salaries from the Iraqi government under the Yazidi Survivors Law, enacted over three years ago, a federal official said on Sunday.
“So far, 2,228 Yazidi girls and women receive salaries,” Sarab Ilias, head of the Yazidis affairs office at the Iraqi ministry of labor and social affairs, told Rudaw.
“Now we have only about 30 pending applications from Yazidi women,” he added, noting that each survivor receives a monthly salary of 800,000 Iraqi dinar ($615).
The Yazidi Survivors Law, passed in March 2021, seeks compensation for Yazidi survivors of the ISIS atrocities against them when the group attacked the Yazidi heartland of Shingal (Sinjar) in 2014. It abducted thousands of people and some two thousand remain missing.
Though the jihadists no longer control any territory, they continue to pose a security risk by carrying out kidnappings, hit-and-run attacks, and bombings.
Thousands of Yazidis who fled Shingal to the Kurdistan Region have chosen not to return due to security concerns and lack of basic services at home.
Each returning family is given four million Iraqi dinars (about $3,050) along with some basic household items including a fridge, stove, and television.
Ali Abbas, spokesperson for Iraq's migration ministry, said in November that around 10,000 Yazidis had returned to Shingal this year.