Recent history

It is alleged by some that during the regime of Saddam Hussein, Yazidis were considered to be Arabs and maneuvered to oppose the Kurds, in order to tilt the ethnic balance in northern Iraq but this cannot be entirely substantiated. It is known, however, that the Yazidi's unique identity, despite being culturally Kurdish, was in fact used by the Baathist regime to isolate one from the other. However, both groups fought against Baathist troops, often in joint Peshmerga units. Since the 2003 occupation of Iraq, the Kurds want the Yazidi to be recognized as ethnic Kurds to increase their numbers and influence.

The Chermera temple (meaning “40 Men” in the Yezidi dialect) on the highest peak on the Sinjar mountains in northern Iraq. The temple is so old that no one remembers how it came to have that name but it is believed to derive from the burial of 40 men on the mountain-top site.

Historically, the Yazidis are a religious minority of the Kurds. Purportedly, they have existed since 2000 BCE. Estimates of the number of Yazidis vary between 100,000 and 800,000, the latter being the claim of their website. According to the same site, Yazidi refugees in Germany number 30,000.

Feleknas Uca, a Kurdish Member of the European Parliament for Germany's Party of Democratic Socialism was the world's only Yazidi parliamentarian until the Iraqi legislature was elected in 2005.

In her memoir of her service in an intelligence unit of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division in Iraq during 2003 and 2004, Kayla Williams (2005) records being stationed in northern Iraq near the Syrian border in an area inhabited by "Yezidis". The Yezidis were Kurdish-speaking, but did not consider themselves Kurds, and expressed to Williams a fondness for America and Israel. She was able to learn only a little about the nature of their religion: she thought it very ancient, and concerned with angels. She describes a mountain-top Yezidi shrine as "a small rock building with objects dangling from the ceiling", and alcoves for the placement of offerings. She reports that local Muslims considered the Yezidis to be devil worshippers.

In an October 2006 article in The New Republic, Lawrence Kaplan echoes Williams's sentiments about the enthusiasm of the Yezidis for the American occupation of Iraq, in part because the Americans protect them from oppression by militant Muslims and the nearby Kurds. Kaplan notes that the peace and calm of Sinjar is virtually unique in Iraq: "Parents and children line the streets when U.S. patrols pass by, while Yezidi clerics pray for the welfare of U.S. forces."

On April 22, 2007, 23 Yazidis were shot and killed by gunman near the town of Bashika. The gunmen stopped the bus they were riding in and separated out Christian passengers. The remaining 23 Yazidis were driven to eastern Mosul where they were shot execution style. This was apparently a reaction to video images of Yazidi from Bashika stoning to death a young woman,[Du’a Khalil Aswad],who had married a muslim two weeks before.