CSW is saddened to learn that the Spiritual Leader of the Yazidi community, Baba Sheikh Khurto Hajji Ismail, passed away on 1 October 2020 due to ongoing health problems. He was 87 years old.

Baba Sheikh led his community through multiple challenging times, including the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the subsequent fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime and atrocity crimes committed by terrorist groups. Tens of thousands of Yazidis were killed by al Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS). Hundreds of thousands of Yazidis were displaced from their homes, and thousands of Yazidi women and children were abducted and forced into slavery. Baba Sheikh was particularly known for his ruling regarding welcoming female victims of IS back into the community.

In December 2019, CSW visited Baba Sheikh in his residence in Shikhan, a Yazidi city in Nineveh Plains. During the visit he expressed dismay that his community was being given insufficient help in rescuing the 3000 Yazidi women and girls who are still missing. He said: “When we needed them, the international community failed us and the Christians. The failure to return our loved ones, to restore our homes in Sinjar, to provide security and protection makes a mockery of all their claims to care about our betrayed and abandoned people. We cannot achieve peace without justice. Many of the ISIS terrorists are living among us but no one is held to account.”

CSW's Chief Executive Scot Bower said: “We extend our deepest condolences to the family of Baba Sheikh, to the Yazidi people around the world, and to the people of Iraq, who have lost a wise and great leader. We pray for grace and wisdom for his successor, peace and comfort for the community, and that those who are still missing would be returned safely. We also continue to call on the international community to ensure protection for the Yazidi people and other vulnerable religious minorities in Iraq, and to hold those responsible for violations against them to account.”