ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Hundreds of Yazidis from around the world flocked to a historic Yazidi village in southeastern Turkey’s Kurdish province of Sirnak to celebrate the community’s New Year.
“Today, we are filled with joy,” one of the attendees told Rudaw, noting that people had traveled from as far as the Yazidi heartland of Shingal (Sinjar) in northern Iraq to take part in the festivities, while extending congratulations to Yazidis on the occasion. Another participant told Rudaw, “I am a Muslim, but I have come to celebrate alongside the Yazidis.”
According to Yazidi belief, their New Year - celebrated on the first Wednesday of April in the Julian calendar - marks the descent of Tawusi Melek, the Peacock Angel in English, to earth, bringing life to the primordial world. For this reason, Yazidis refer to April as “the bride of the year” and refrain from holding weddings during the month.
To mark the occasion, families gather outdoors in nature to feast and celebrate. They dye eggs in vibrant colors symbolizing the diversity of the universe, light small oil lamps to represent the triumph of light over darkness, and decorate their doorways with red anemones and eggshells.
Kiwex village head, Necat Akcay told Rudaw, “When problems arose in Kiwex, we went to Europe. God willing, in the future, we will turn our village into a paradise - more beautiful even than Paris or any other city in Europe.”
The Yazidi New Year celebrations come as the community’s highest religious authority, the Supreme Spiritual Council, on Monday cancelled all official public ceremonies for the community’s New Year, citing regional instability.
Mir Hazim Tahsin Saeed, the temporal and spiritual head of the Yazidi community worldwide, said in a statement on Facebook that it was decided to postpone public parades, adding that a “strict ban” would be imposed on all media coverage inside Lalish Temple, located in the mountains of Shekhan district in Duhok.
The rare suspension of celebrations came against the backdrop of a six-week Iran war that has shaken the region.
However, beyond that, the Yazidi community has endured multiple waves of persecution in recent decades, the most brutal being the August 2014 assault by the Islamic State (ISIS) on Shingal. During the attack, the extremist group killed an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Yazidi men and older women, and abducted 6,000 to 7,000 women and girls for sexual slavery and human trafficking.
A total of 3,593 survivors have since been rescued, according to the Office of Rescuing Abducted Yazidis, affiliated with the Kurdistan Region’s presidency. Meanwhile, the United Nations has recognized the persecution of Yazidis in the 2014 attack by ISIS as genocide.
Ibrahim Kus, president of the Germany-based Society of Yazidi Academics, told Rudaw, “For a Yazidi to say security has been established - to say, ‘I can go build a house in my village, I can sleep in my village without fear and continue my life’ - these are things that cannot yet be done. A true sense of security has not fully developed among the Yazidis.”