Berlin: Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, recognised on Thursday the 2014 massacre of Yazidis by Islamic State (IS) group jihadists in Iraq as a “genocide,” and called for measures to assist the besieged minority, according to DW news.
In a move hailed by Yazidi community representatives, deputies in the Bundestag passed the motion by the three parliamentary groups in Germany’s ruling centre-left-led coalition and conservative members of parliament.
The Bundestag “recognizes the crimes against the Yazidi community as genocide, following the legal evaluations of investigators from the United Nations,” the resolution said, after similar moves by countries including Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands.
The resolution condemns “indescribable atrocities” and “tyrannical injustice” carried out by IS fighters “with the intention of completely wiping out the Yazidi community”.
The motion urges the German judicial system to pursue further criminal cases against suspects in Germany and the government to increase financial support to collect evidence of crimes in Iraq and boost funding to help rebuild shattered Yazidi communities.