The United States must take “bolder action” to address threats posed to the Yazidis, a US religious freedom official said Monday, as Iraq’s long-persecuted minority marked the sixth anniversary of the terrorist rampage on their homeland.

“The US government cannot rest with just providing humanitarian aid to the Yazidis and other religious and ethnic minorities, as essential as that assistance may be," said Nadine Maenza, a commissioner at the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan watchdog group.

“It must also act decisively to push back against the regional forces that threaten the safety and security of those very communities,” she said at a virtual panel hosted by advocacy group Free Yezidi Foundation.

In the six years since the Islamic State (IS) stormed their towns, killed their men and enslaved their women and children, Yazidi activists say little has been done to ensure that it will never happen again. More than 2,800 of the women and children taken captive in August 2014 remain missing, with many feared dead. Those who survived what the United Nations now calls a genocide and who now live in camps scattered along northern Iraq are trapped in poverty.