The Sinjar massacre () marked the beginning of the genocide of Yazidis by ISIL, the killing and abduction of thousands of Yazidi men, women and children. It took place in August 2014 in Sinjar city and Sinjar District in Iraq's Nineveh Governorate and was perpetrated by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The massacre began with ISIL attacking and capturing Sinjar and neighboring towns on 3 August, during its Northern Iraq offensive.
On 8 August 2014, the United States and the United Kingdom responded with airstrikes on ISIL units and convoys in northern Iraq, which led to a military intervention from several countries against ISIL.
On 17 December 2014, the Kurdish Peshmerga, PKK and YPG forces started the December 2014 Sinjar offensive with the support of US and British airstrikes. This offensive broke ISIL's troop transport routes and supply lines between Mosul and Raqqa, the largest cities in the Islamic State at the time.
According to Noori Abdulrahman, the head of the Department of Coordination and Follow-up of the Kurdistan Regional Government, ISIL wanted to push most of the Kurds out of strategic areas and bring in Arabs who were obedient to ISIL.
Background
Sinjar was predominantly inhabited by Yazidis before the arrival of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
On 29 June 2014, the Islamic State declared a caliphate in the contiguous areas of Syria and Iraq it controlled, after it had made significant advances in northern Iraq during the Northern Iraq offensive (June 2014). After Iraqi federal military forces fled from the advancing ISIL troops, local residents seized their abandoned weapons in case of an attack by the Islamic State. Kurdistan Regional Government Peshmerga fighters then moved into and took control of much of the abandoned territory in northern Iraq from their stronghold in the Kurdistan Region. The Peshmerga confiscated the weapons the Iraqi Army had abandoned, assuring residents that they would protect them.
ISIL takeover and siege
The offensive by night
As ISIL attacked Sinjar and neighboring cities, the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in Sinjar withdrew, leaving the civilians behind without warning. There is general agreement that the majority of the forces in Shingal on that day were affiliated with the KDP, despite wildly varying estimates as to troop levels. KDP commanders claim that there were 2,000–4,000 KDP troops in the area. Similarly, Shex Alo, the KDP frontline commander for Shingal section, claims that there were 2,000 KDP fighters in the area, along with one additional Peshmerga brigade and PUK units. Meanwhile most others, including but not limited to HPÊ commander Haydar Shesho and Senior Gorran Movement official Mustafa Saed Qadir who was the Minister of Peshmerga Affairs at the time and had some Peshmerga brigades in Shingal under his control, estimate that there were many more, around 11,000–15,000 troops stationed.
The villagers defended themselves with their own weapons, but ISIL fighters shelled them with mortars. By 3 a.m., ISIL fighters had broken through, and began killing anyone seen outdoors.
On the morning of 3 August 2014, ISIL forces captured the city of Sinjar as well as the Sinjar area. ISIL then detonated the Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque in Sinjar, executed resisters, and demanded the residents to swear allegiance and to convert to Islam or be killed.
Locals' exodus
In the surrounding villages, many residents fled immediately. According to Yazidis, ISIL fighters asked the remaining Yazidis to convert to Islam or face death, and ISIL Twitter accounts posted images of murders in the Sinjar area.
Almost 200,000 civilians, mostly Yazidis along with Shia, managed to flee from the fighting in Sinjar city.
Sinjar mountains' siege
About 50,000 Yazidis fled into the Sinjar Mountains, where they were trapped without food, water or medical care and faced starvation and dehydration.
The U.S. government, Kurdish Peshmerga forces, and Western media reported that thousands of Yazidis in the Sinjar Mountains were under siege by ISIL.
Tahseen Said, the emir of the Yazidis, issued an appeal to world leaders on 3 August 2014, asking for humanitarian help to aid those who were besieged by ISIL. On 4 August, Kurdish fighters reportedly battled ISIL to retake Sinjar.
Killings throughout the Sinjar area
On 7 August 2014, The New York Times reported that ISIL had executed dozens of Yazidi men in Sinjar city and had taken their wives for forced marriage. It was also reported that ISIL fighters executed ten caretakers of the Shia Sayeda Zeinab shrine in Sinjar before blowing it up.