The Yazidis -- whose pre-Islamic religion made them the target of IS extremists -- were subjected to massacres, forced marriages and sex slavery during the jihadists' 2014-15 rule in the northern Iraq province of Sinjar, the Yazidis' traditional home.
The UK foreign office made the announcement ahead of events to mark "the nine year anniversary of atrocities" committed by the Islamic State against the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi minority in Iraq.
"The UK has today formally acknowledged that acts of genocide were committed against the Yazidi people by Daesh in 2014," the statement said, using another name for IS.
So far, the UK has acknowledged only four other instances where genocide has occurred, the Holocaust, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and acts of genocide in Cambodia.
"The Yazidi population suffered immensely at the hands of Daesh nine years ago and the repercussions are still felt to this day," UK's Middle East minister Tariq Ahmad said in the statement.
"Justice and accountability are key for those whose lives have been devastated," he added.
Murad Ismael, co-founder of global Yazidi organisation Yazda, hailed the UK recognition as an "important step".
"Acknowledgement is the heart of justice process and helping victims to heal from the deep wounds of this genocide," he told AFP.
"I am pleased that the UK government has formally recognised the horrors suffered by the Yazidis as genocide", said Nadia Murad, a Yazidi Nobel Peace Prize Laureate campaigning against the use of sexual violence in war, particularly against the Yazidis.
"I hope that the British government will now begin to seek justice for the victims by holding British-born fighters to account," she added.
"The world cannot afford to let ISIS members walk free. It sends a message to the world that you can murder and rape with impunity."
- German court ruling -
The official UK recognition follows a German court judgement which found a former IS fighter guilty of acts of genocide in Iraq.
"The UK's position has always been that determinations of genocide should be made by competent courts," according to the statement.
In a landmark trial, a Frankfurt court in November 2021 sentenced Taha al-Jumailly to life in jail for crimes including the murder of a five-year-old Yazidi girl in Iraq.
Prosecutors said al-Jumailly in 2015 chained the enslaved child outdoors in extreme heat, leading to her dying of thirst.
Activists hailed the court ruling as a "historic" win.
The verdict was upheld after the German Federal Court of Justice this January rejected the defendant's appeal.
Germany is one of the few countries to have taken legal action against IS.
The UK's lower house of parliament, the House of Commons, had unanimously voted to condemn the IS's treatment of Yazidis and Christians in Iraq as amounting to genocide in 2016, in a rare instance of parliamentary determination of genocide.
The foreign ministry had refused to acknowledge the genocide then, in keeping with a long-standing policy on the determination of genocide by courts rather than governments.
Nearly six years since Iraq declared "victory" over IS, many Yazidis have still not been able to return to Sinjar.
Thousands still live in precarious conditions in camps for displaced people.
Those who have returned face an unstable security situation and inadequate or nonexistent public services.
Iraq's Yazidis: reclusive group hunted by Islamic State
Paris (AFP) Aug 1, 2023 -
The Yazidis, who Britain on Tuesday officially acknowledged as victims of "acts of genocide" by the Islamic State (IS), are a Kurdish-speaking ethno-religious minority found mainly in Iraq.
IS jihadists carried out horrific violence against the community in 2014, killing men en masse and abducting thousands of girls and women as sex slaves.
Here are some key facts about the Yazidis:
- Ancient faith -
The Yazidis are followers of an ancient religion that emerged in Iran more than 4,000 years ago and is rooted in Zoroastrianism.
Over time it has also absorbed elements of Islam and Christianity.
Organised into three castes -- sheikhs, pirs, and murids -- Yazidis pray to God facing the sun and worship his seven angels, led by Melek Taus, or Peacock Angel.
Their holiest site is Lalish, a stone complex of shrines and natural springs in Iraq's mountainous northwest.
Yazidis discourage marriage outside of their community and across their caste system.
Their beliefs and practices include a ban on eating lettuce and wearing the colour blue. Some Muslims wrongly accuse them of being devil worshippers.
The community was persecuted during Ottoman times and also under Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
- Hunted by IS -
Of the world's nearly 1.5 million Yazidis, the largest number -- 550,000 -- lived in Iraq before the IS offensive in 2014.
The Sunni extremists attacked the Yazidi bastion of Sinjar in August 2014, killing more than 1,200 people, leaving several hundred children orphaned and destroying nearly 70 shrines, according to local authorities.
A further 6,400 Yazidis were abducted, around half of whom were rescued or managed to flee.
After the massacres, some 100,000 Yazidis fled to Europe, the United States, Australia and Canada, according to the UN.
Among those who found refuge in Germany was 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad who was captured, raped and forced to marry a jihadist before she was able to escape.
- 'Genocide' label -
In May 2021, a special UN investigation team said it had collected "clear and convincing evidence" that IS had committed genocide against the Yazidis.
Six months later, a German court was the first in the world to recognise crimes against the Yazidi community as genocide.
On Tuesday, Britain's government officially acknowledged that IS had committed "acts of genocide" against the Yazidis.
Germany's lower house of parliament in January also recognised the 2014 massacres as "genocide", following similiar moves in Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands.
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