The death of Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, also known as Abdullah Qaradash, in Syria’s northwest province of Idlib on Feb. 3 sparked various reactions among Yazidis, against whom IS committed war crimes and atrocities since it occupied their historic homeland in Iraq in August 2014.

Seif Mito, a 19-year-old Yazidi, told Al-Monitor how he suffered at the hands of IS during its rule. He said IS fighters kidnapped him from Sinjar in northern Iraq, along with his brother Zeid, who is five years younger than him, after his entire family was killed. 

Commenting on Qurayshi’s role in the genocide against the Yazidis, Mito said, “After the soldiers of the caliphate captured us, they moved us — there were hundreds of Yazidi boys and girls — to the technical institute in Solagh, east of Sinjar, on Aug. 15, 2014. Then, Qurayshi arrived with some IS figures in a Toyota Prado, and told us that we will be the next generation of the caliphate and the soldiers of their Islamic state. He then gave the Yazidi girls to his soldiers as sex slaves, and chose young Yazidi girls as sex slaves for himself. I recognized three of the girls, including a neighbor of mine. Then they moved us to Raqqa in Syria.”

He said IS sent them to the so-called Cubs of the Caliphate camps in Raqqa — IS’ former self-proclaimed capital in Syra — where they trained him and his brother, along with hundreds of other Yazidi children, in the use of firearms, and forced them to fight within IS’ ranks on the frontlines.