Canada to sponsor 1,200 Yazidi refugees and many will come to Manitoba

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This article was published 21/02/2017 (2901 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA – Canada will sponsor 1,200 Yazidi refugees and other survivors of the Islamic State this year with many of them destined for Manitoba, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen announced Tuesday.

The decision follows a motion passed unanimously by the House of Commons last October to commit Canada to providing asylum to Yazidis, particularly women and girls who were kidnapped and turned into sex slaves by ISIS.

“We in Canada have a very long and progressive tradition of welcoming those in need of sanctuary from war and persecution and this initiative. . .is in line with that tradition,” Hussen said in the National Press Theatre Tuesday afternoon.

About 400 of the 1,200 survivors are already in Canada, and about 74 per cent of them Yazidis. The program will largely focus on women and girls and boys who were forced by ISIS into sex slavery and forced military service.

The Yazidis are a religious minority of about 800,000 people who mostly lived near the Iraqi/Syrian border. In 2014, IS launched a campaign against the Yazidis, and at least 5,000 have been killed, and from 3,000 to 5,000 women and girls enslaved.

There are about 400 Yazidis living in Canada, about half in Winnipeg and the other half in London, Ont. The government does not intend to publicize much information about the whereabouts of the Yazidis because their extreme vulnerability and ties to family members who are still being held captive by IS is too risky to breach their privacy. However Manitoba, Ontario and Alberta are listed as the main destinations for the resettlement.

Conservative Immigration Critic Michelle Rempel, who campaigned hard for the government to accept the atrocities against the Yazidis as a genocide, said Tuesday the world, including Canada, took far too long to help what she says is the most vulnerable population in the world today.

She said there are problems with the United Nations refugee processing that meant there were no Yazidis identified to Canada on lists of refugees in need of help among the 40,000 Syrians sponsored by Canada in 2016.

“I hope today’s announcement awakens the global community,” said Rempel.

The government will also help facilitate the private sponsorship of additional Yazidi refugees from groups like Operation Ezra, the multi-faith organization that has come together in Winnipeg to sponsor Yazidi refugees. Thus far the group has privately resettled 35 Yazidis, and expects that number to almost double by the end of this year. Two more families will arrive in Winnipeg this week.

Hussen said Canada learned lessons from Germany, which last year resettled 1,000 Yazidi women and girls, and realized the depth of the trauma and the high needs of the population when it comes to physical and mental supports.

Operation Ezra spokesman Michel Aziza was pleased by the announcement but cautious.

“It’s not as large a number as we were expecting but we are aware of the difficulties in resettling and we hope this is just the beginning,” said Aziza.

He said if three-quarters of the 1,200 are Yazidis, that will triple the size of the Yazidi community in Canada. He said in recent days the local Yazidi community in Winnipeg has been meeting with settlement organizations to prepare for the arrival.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca