Kocho (; ) is a village in

Sinjar District The Sinjar District or the Shingal District (, ) is a district of the Nineveh Governorate. The district seat is the town of Sinjar. The district has two subdistricts, al-Shemal and al-Qayrawan. The district is one of two major population centers ...

, south of the

Sinjar Mountains The Sinjar Mountains (, , ), are a mountain range that runs east to west, rising above the surrounding alluvial steppe plains in northwestern Iraq to an elevation of . The highest segment of these mountains, about long, lies in the Nineveh Gov ...

in the

Nineveh Governorate Nineveh Governorate (; , ) is a governorate in northern Iraq. It has an area of and an estimated population of 2,453,000 people as of 2003. Its largest city and provincial capital is Mosul, which lies across the Tigris river from the ruins of a ...

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

. It is considered one of the disputed territories of Northern Iraq and is populated by

Yazidis Yazidis, also spelled Yezidis (; ), are a Kurdish languages, Kurdish-speaking Endogamy, endogamous religious group indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran. The major ...

. The village came to international attention in 2014 due to the

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

of Yazidis committed by the

Islamic State The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadism, Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS ...

Genocide in Kocho

Background

Iraqi forces withdrew from Sinjar region including the village of Kocho after the

Fall of Mosul The Fall Of Mosul in Iraq occurred between 4 and 10 June 2014, when Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) insurgents, initially led by Abu Abdulrahman al-Bilawi, captured Mosul from the Iraqi Army, led by Lieutenant General Mahdi Al-Gha ...

in early June 2014, prompting the lightly-equipped and outgunned

Peshmerga The Peshmerga () are the internal security forces of Kurdistan Region. According to the Constitution of Iraq, regional governments are responsible for "the establishment and organization of the internal security forces for the region such as p ...

to enter

Sinjar Sinjar (; , ) is a town in the Sinjar District of the Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq. It is located about five kilometers south of the Sinjar Mountains. Its population in 2013 was estimated at 88,023, and is predominantly Yazidi. History ...

city to prevent ISIS from capturing the city. Peshmerga began constructing a barrier south of the city to prevent ISIS incursions. The region experienced small-scale attacks from ISIS between June and August that year and the small contingent of Peshmerga soldiers in Kocho would ultimately leave to reinforce other Peshmerga forces northward due to the ISIS advance. Hundreds of locals left towards the

afterwards to seek refuge and were later rescued by

People's Protection Units The People's Defense Units (YPG), also called People's Protection Units, is a libertarian socialist US-backed Kurds in Syria, Kurdish militant group in Syria and the primary component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The YPG mostl ...

while some were reported to be caught by ISIS.

Genocide

On 3 August 2014, the Islamic State took control of the whole village and the town was captured by

Iraqi forces The Iraqi Armed Forces are the military forces of the Republic of Iraq. They consist of the Ground forces, the Army Aviation Command, the Iraqi Air Force, the Air Defence Command, and the Iraqi Navy. The armed forces are administered by the Min ...

and

Êzîdxan Protection Force The Êzîdxan Protection Force (HPÊ) (, ), is a Yazidi military force founded by Haydar Shesho in the summer of 2014 in response to the Sinjar massacre. It was bigger than the other main Yazidi militia who took part in the liberation of Sinjar ...

on 25 May 2017. The Islamic State imprisoned Yazidis for 12 days and then gave the Yazidis an ultimatum of three days to convert to Islam or face death. Since the Yazidis refused to convert to Islam, the massacre started on the 15 August 2014. The Islamic State separated the men from the women and children and took them all to the secondary school of the village, where the Yazidis had to hand over their mobile phones and jewelry. An estimated 1826 Yazidis lived in the village of Kocho. The Islamic State beheaded about 600 Yazidi men, and some were burned alive or shot. The bodies of the people, including some who were alive, were all thrown into mass graves. Subsequently, the Islamic State abducted more than 1,000 Yazidi children and women from the village. The under-14s were taken to Islamic State military camps where they were trained to become IS terrorists, and the Yazidi women and girls were held as slaves and sexually abused. In the wider

Sinjar massacre The Sinjar massacre () marked the beginning of the genocide of Yazidis by ISIL, the killing and abduction of thousands of Yazidis, Yazidi men, women and children. It took place in August 2014 in Sinjar city and Sinjar District in Iraq's Nineveh ...

, Islamic State militants previously shot dead 90 Yazidis (including 12-year-old boys) in the neighboring village of Qiniyeh on 3 August 2014. On 25 January 2015, some members on the Yazidi community retaliated against their Arab neighbors in response to the massacre.

Aftermath

In March 2019, mass grave exhumations began in Kocho.

Notable Persons

Nadia Murad Nadia Murad Basee Taha (; ; born 10 March 1993) is an Iraqi-born Yazidi human rights activist based in Germany. In 2014, during the Yazidi genocide by the Islamic State, she was abducted from her hometown of Kocho in Iraq. Much of her communi ...

* Lamiya Haji Bashar

Bibliography

* Kocho: ISIS Massacre in a Yezidi Village (Paul Kingery, 05.10.2018)

References

{{Reflist Populated places in Nineveh Governorate Yazidi populated places in Iraq Persecution of Yazidis by ISIL