Kocho, Iraq


Kocho is a Yazidi village in the Sinjar District, south of the Sinjar Mountains in the Nineveh Governorate of northern Iraq. It is considered one of the disputed territories of Northern Iraq. The village came to international attention in 2014 through the genocide of Yazidis by the Islamic State.

History

Kocho, like the entire region of Sinjar, is considered to be one of the disputed territories of northern Iraq. According to article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, a referendum should decide on the status of the village and the fate of its inhabitants. Since 2003, the village has been occupied by Kurdish Peshmerga troops, who fled from the village on 2 August 2014. On 3 August 2014, the Islamic State took control over the whole village. On 25 May 2017, Iraqi forces and Yazidi militias liberated the village from ISIS. In March 2019, mass grave exhumations began in Kocho.

Population

The village's population is entirely Yazidi and are mainly farmers.

Massacre of Yazidis from Kocho

On 3 August 2014, the Islamic State committed a genocide against the Yazidis. The massacre occurred because the Kurdish Peshmerga had fled from ISIS and left the Yazidis defenseless. 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 or shot alive. 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. Previously, 90 Yazidis were shot dead by the Islamic State in the neighboring village of Qiniyeh on 3 August 2014.

Notable Persons

The Yazidi Human rights activists Nadia Murad and Lamiya Haji Bashar were born in Kocho.