THE genocidal killing of thousands of Yazidis four years ago was commemorated by Kurds today, who pledged “an oath to fight” for freedom and democracy in their honour.

“Standing with the Yazidi people will mean an end to oppression and massacres against all peoples of the Middle East, ” the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) said a statement marking the anniversary of the August 3 genocide carried out by the Isis death cult.

The Yazidi are a minority community living mainly in northern Iraq. Isis views them as “infidels” and “devil worshippers” because they follow a peacock god called Tawusi Melek.

Prior to the 2014 massacre, Isis attacked Yazidi villages in preparation for a major offensive against the Iraqi town of Sinjar. When the anticipated attack came on August 3, the Yazidis were abandoned by Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces.

They were left isolated and surrounded by Isis, with thousands forced to flee to Mount Sinjar without food or water.

According to a United Nations report, at least 5,000 Yazidi men were murdered as Isis went from village to village slaughtering those who had hair in their armpits. Men were loaded onto lorries and taken into fields, where they were shot dead.

Thousands of Yazidi women and girls were kidnapped by the death cult to be sold as sex slaves in Raqqa or gifted as wives to Isis fighters and commanders.

At least 3,200 female Yazidis are believed to remain in captivity.

The Mount Sinjar massacre was officially recognised as a genocide by the UN in 2016.

“We repeat our promise that the abducted women and children are an oath to fight for us,” KCK vowed in a statement.

It said that an attack on the Yazidi people was an attack against the history of the Middle East,” warning that “all of humanity is indirectly responsible for this massacre” for failing to prevent the attack.

“As such, everybody owes the Yazidi people in the name of humanity,” the group stressed.

The KCK called on “all Kurdish people and the peoples of the Middle East to increase the fight for freedom and democracy and to create a free and democratic life in the Middle East, the land of morality, conscience, justice, equality and fairness, and to make these lands the lands of humanity’s democratic civilisation again.”