Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

His Highness Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, said that the ninth anniversary of the heinous crimes committed by the terrorist organisation Daesh against the Yazidis and others in Iraq is a painful reminder of atrocities commited against human beings.

Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed said on Twitter, “The 9th anniversary of the crimes committed by the Daesh terrorist group against the Yazidis and others in Iraq is a painful reminder of the importance of embracing peaceful coexistence and rejecting all forms of discrimination based on religion or sect or ethnicity.”

Daesh carried out horrific violence against the community in 2014, killing men en masse and abducting thousands of girls and women as sex slaves.

The Yazidis, who Britain on Tuesday officially acknowledged as victims of "acts of genocide" by the Daesh, are a Kurdish-speaking ethno-religious minority found mainly in Iraq.

The Yazidis are followers of an ancient religion that emerged in Iran more than 4,000 years ago and is rooted in Zoroastrianism.

A group of Yazidi women flee their hometown after Daesh attack in Sinjar, Iraq. File

Of the world's nearly 1.5 million Yazidis, the largest number — 550,000 — lived in Iraq before the Daesh offensive in 2014.

The extremists attacked the Yazidi bastion of Sinjar in August 2014, killing more than 1,200 people, leaving several hundred children orphaned and destroying nearly 70 shrines, according to local authorities.

A further 6,400 Yazidis were abducted, around half of whom were rescued or managed to flee.

After the massacres, some 100,000 Yazidis fled to Europe, the United States, Australia and Canada, according to the UN.

Among those who found refuge in Germany was 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad who was captured, raped and forced to marry a Daesh member before she was able to escape.