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Pluto Press has recently released a new book entitled “The World Has Forgotten Us: Sinjar and the Islamic State’s Genocide of the Yezidis” by Thomas Schmidinger.

The persecution of the Yezidis, a Gnostic religious community originating in Upper Mesopotamia, has been ongoing since at least the 10th century. The book deals with the massacres that occurred against the Yazidis on August 3, 2014, when the terrorist organization ISIS attacked them in Sinjar, Iraqi Kurdistan, where they enslaved and killed thousands. Even around 100,000 people fled to Mount Sinjar, permanently exiled from their homes.

In the book, Thomas Schmidinger talks to the Yezidis in Iraq who tell the history of their people, why the genocide happened and how it affects their lives today.

This is the first full account of these events, as told by the Yezidis in their own words, to be published in English. It explores the reasons of the failure of the Kurdistan Peshmerga of the PDK in Iraq to protect the Yezidis, and the crucial support given by the Syrian-Kurdish YPG.

This multi-faceted and important history that the book focuses on, brings the fight and trauma of the Yezidis back into focus, calling for the world to remember their struggle.

Thomas Schmidinger is a Political Scientist and Cultural Anthropologist based at the University of Vienna. He is Secretary General of the Austrian Association for Kurdish studies. He is the author of Rojava, which received the Mezlum Bagok award.