Talk:Sinjar massacre

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I think we should merge the Zumar and Sinjar articles into one new overarching offensive article. Something like "Iraqi Kurdistan Offensive" or something, as a lot more towns than just these two were taken, and would allow for a more in depth explanation of the role the US is playing 24.185.209.60 (talk) 21:16, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * All part of the 2014 Northern Iraq offensive. See 2014 American intervention in Iraq too. Sinjar is a town, a district and a mtn range, not just one town, so this article covers a wider area than the town. Legacypac (talk) 08:02, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi first edit on Wikipedia, There should be a mention of the oil companies that pulled out staff in Iraqi Kurdistan just prior to the US airstrikes. In my perception, the direct threat of oil interests and of the US Consulate in Erbil have been prime motivators for the US intervention rather than the rhetoric on 'preventing genocide' as claimed. Perhaps the fact that the oil companies withdrew their staff due to the IS offensive and just prior to the US airstrikes should be mention. Source on the oil companies' withdrawal of staff Achilles M (talk) 09:56, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

How appropriate is this?
Why is there a separate article on this incident? There is already an article on the Persecution of Yazidis by the Islamic State, and this short article could easily be incorporated into that. Much of this article is repetition of what is already there. --P123ct1 (talk) 07:55, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Changing the name and theme
I think this article is needed, but not only talking about Sinjar. But it should be about the whole war of ISIL. We can edit and expand it rather than delete it. Another option is to merge it with Northern Iraq warPirehelokan (talk) 06:41, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Massacre of Sinjar town or Sinjar district?
From the page and the comments I can't quite understand if the pages deals only with one massacre in the town of Sinjar, or with all the massacres of Yazidis in the Sinjar district. If the latter case is correct, there would be need of a) moving the number of Yazidis killed from 500 to 5,000, as UN sources state (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2792552/full-horror-yazidis-didn-t-escape-mount-sinjar-confirms-5-000-men-executed-7-000-women-kept-sex-slaves.html), and b) to describe all the massacres of Yazidis in Sinjar region (Quiniyeh, 70-90 killed; Hardan, 60 killed; Ramadi Jabal, 60-70 killed; Dhola, 50 killed; Khana Sor, 100 killed; Hardan, 250-300 killed; al-Shimal, "dozens" of dead; Khocho, 400 killed; Tal Afar prison, 200 killed; Jidala, 14 killed; plus the hundreds who died along the roads and while fleeing to the mountains, the abductions, and the killings with less than ten dead) with the details contained in this OHRCHR/UNAMI report: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/IQ/UNAMI_OHCHR_POC_Report_FINAL_6July_10September2014.pdf --2.35.58.16 (talk) 22:32, 17 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Your link to ohchr.org does not work, so I can't check that information. --Corriebertus (talk) 15:57, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The link does work.--93.70.1.9 (talk) 22:23, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Can LD2 please start behaving like a good, cooperative, Wikipedian?
What’s wrong with LightandDark2000? Since 24 March, I keep reverting his (unmotivated) edits, and have asked him several times to source and motivate his edits. Once again I ask him: ''can he please first try to grasp what a colleague is saying, contending, to him, and, if he thinks the colleague is wrong, clearly say and explain why or where he is wrong—in stead of impassively or gruffly repeating his already denounced edits, not heeding the clear objections of others? ''

In edits 25 March, 14:33, and 26 March, 06:08, on article Sinjar massacre, I’ve argued that a source(hurr11-3-14) from 9Aug(!) can’t give information on “allowing Yazidis to escape” on 13 August(!), and that none of the four sources NYT13-8-14, vice-16aug2014 , reuters-26aug and globalpost-29aug (until this morning numbered as refs 16,6,7,8) mentions that “on 13 August2014, …break the ISIL Siege of Mount Sinjar”.

Nevertheless: on 27 March, 10:54, LD2 again reinserted those two contentions, without any new, or better, sourcing, and without even reacting on my motivating comments of 25+26March. Which addings I again removed 27March12:18, again urging LD2 to motivate such edits—especially ofcourse when edits have been reverted, with clear motivation, just one or two days before!

But again: 28March00:28, LD2 reinserted exactly those same two contentions with exactly the same five would-be ‘sourcing’ references—which still ofcourse don’t source nor prove those two contentions at all—saying: “it is all sourced”.

No: those two contentions are not sourced. How can a ref article of 9 Aug (Hurriyet Daily, 9 August 2014, until this morning ref 17) ‘reveal’ anything about “…allowing to escape” on 13 August!? And, where in any of those other four given ‘sources’(old refs 16,6,7,8) is a mentioning of anything, just anything, happening or changing in or around Sinjar on exactly 13 August!?

Also, I happen to discover that LD2 sort of consistently removes whole (long) discussions from his Talk page. For example twice on 28 March, this one about ‘Hasakah’ and this one about ‘Kobani’, but also a discussion of mine on 24 March. Why does he quickly remove such discussions? Does he want to conceal from the Wiki community that he is having difficult or weary or annoying discussions with really a lot of colleagues? -- Corriebertus (talk) 14:16, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

The article now contradicts itself, is inconsistent
Colleagues, I notice that in the recent 1½ days, 36 edits have been made by two editors and I see a worrying, undesirable contradiction or inconsistency having arisen in the article. I’ve always considered this article to be about the massacre in the city of Sinjar (2,000 deaths max.), because the ‘body-text’ of the article—meaning the text except the lead (which ought to be only a summary of the text of the body)—covers and presents only that: the assault on the city of Sinjar and its consequences in those mountains. The rest of those 5,000 deaths occurred also during the August 2014 offensive and were, to my knowing, presented in both ‘Northern Iraq offensive (August 2014)’ and ‘Persecution of Yazidis by ISIL’—or, if that presentation was not yet in good order, that presentation could and should be improved in those two articles. Suddenly in the last day however, someone changed the lead, as to say now that the Sinj.mass. article would cover those massacres “in the city of Sinjar and surrounding area in the Nineveh Governorate” (“possibly” 5,000 deaths…but in the Infobox the word ‘possibly’ is left out: that (too) is contradicting…). However, the article itself is not changed in that respect, and is still only presenting (in §2 “…massacre”) the massacre in the city of Sinjar. That seems to me inconstent, contradictory, and (therefore) possibly confusing for readers.

If you want to ‘re-invent’ or (re-)define this article, following some (arbitrary, personal) definition (in your own head) saying it should cover massacres also outside the city of Sinjar, then make sure that the article-body really does present all those massacres. I do not favour that point of view—I think the encyclopedia would be clearer and better organised by leaving only the massacre of the city of Sinjar in this article and leave the rest of the 5,000-deaths-massacres in those two other above-mentioned articles. But what I abominate above all are contradictory, inconsistent (and/or ambiguous and/or confusing and/or misleading) articles, the way one (or two) of you have made it now, in the recent 30 hours. (P.S. Strikingly enough, also the section §’Other massacres by ISIL’, with wikilinks: ‘Main articles: Northern Iraq offensive (August 2014) and Persecution of Yazidis by ISIL’ has been removed. What is going on here?…) --Corriebertus (talk) 17:50, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * This article was originally created as the Battle of Sinjar article, encompassing also the siege of Mount Sinjar. Than, due to the battle for the city itself not being notable enough (almost no fighting occurred) editors renamed the article to instead deal with the killings/massacre of Yazidis that happened in both the city and on the mountain, because at the time sources indicated killings mostly in these two areas. However, subsequent reports in the following months (like the UN report) stated a much larger number of killings happened throughout the Sinjar district. So now we have expanded the article in light of the new information to include all of the killings from the Sinjar district in the month of August. I have added a sentence stating While the siege of Mount Sinjar was taking place, ISIL reportedly killed hundreds of Yazidis in at least five of the nearby villages as per the UN source. If you want feel free to expand the article more comprehensively about the killings in those other villages. Those other two articles that you mentioned talk about two more larger/broader subjects. The offensive article talks about the general ISIS offensive that month and subsequent Kurdish/Coalition counter-attack, of which the Sinjar killings were only ONE event among many others at the time and as part of that operation. And the Persecution of Yazidis by ISIL also deals with the broader and more long-term persecution of the Yazidis that is taking place even today, and not just during that one month (August) when these killings occurred. In essence, the Sinjar massacre article is a sub-article of those two. EkoGraf (talk) 18:11, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * PS Please refrain from comments like following some (arbitrary, personal) definition (in your own head) which is not really per Civility and please stick to Assume good faith as I have in regards to you because I think a lot of what you previously added to the articles is really useful info and can improve the articles. Thank you! :) EkoGraf (talk) 18:14, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with EkoGraf. Despite the numerous changes this article had gone through, apparently, the scope of this article is now about the massacres that happened throughout the Sinjar District as a whole in August 2014, as well as the infamous siege and clashes that coupled these killings. The one event at Sinjar city may have been the biggest in terms of one-day slaughters, but this article is no longer about the killings only in Sinjar city. LightandDark2000 (talk) 21:07, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Corrections and updates
Until 30 March,11:19, page Sinjar massacre presented two larger events, clearly and distinctly:
 * (event (A):) a massacre in Sinjar between 2 and 5 August 2014 by ISIL on Yazidis with 500–2,000 deaths;
 * (event (B):) evacuation of many Yazidi refugees from the Sinjar Mountains between 8 and 13 August. While ofcourse no one would define sitting in mountains, or being evacuated from mountains, as ‘massacring’, nor as ‘being massacred’, it was clear that this episode had hung on in this article, apparently as a sort-of aftermath of the massacre as meant in event (A).

Also the article contained, clearly and distinctly, a short mentioning (in §5) of:
 * (event (C):) a larger massacre, also in August committed by ISIL striking Yazidis, with 5,000 deaths—accompanied with a reference to ‘main article: Persecution of Yazidis by ISIL’.

That version had two flaws though, which even until this morning had not been discovered and repaired: — (1) The first flaw was, that the article asserted that event (A), ‘massacre in Sinjar’ with 500–2,000 deaths, occurred in the city of Sinjar. Source CNN6August (‘500 deaths’) clearly said so; source CNN7Aug (‘2,000 deaths’) is unspecific about either ‘city’ or ‘district’ Sinjar, so apparently we assumed that it also pertained to ‘city’ of Sinjar. But just now I’ve discovered a new source, The New Yorker 6 Aug, which clearly links those ‘2,000 massacred in Sinjar’ to the district of Sinjar;

— (2) The second weak point was, that the article, though referring, in section 5, to the larger ISIL August massacre on Yazidis with 5,000 deaths (presented in Persecution of Yazidis by ISIL), neglected to clearly point out, preferably in the lead section, that (event (A)) ‘Sinjar massacre’ simply formed a part of that larger (event (C)) massacre.


 * I. Correcting some edits of 30 March–1 April

Until this morning, neither of those two flaws (see above) had been discovered and mended by anyone, which ofcourse can’t be taken ill of anyone. EkoGraf however on 30 March did start on a number of incorrect edits, after a few hours joined by LightandDark2000 – incorrect edits that mainly mixed-up, confused, features of the above-mentioned three events (A), (B) and (C) by sticking them to the wrong event; edits of which I’ll now first explain, one by one, why I had to remove them today—while ofcourse leaving intact all their good edits:


 * 1) edit Eko 30March,16:10, in Infobox: changed the “Date” from ‘2–5Aug’ to ‘3–14Aug’ (which Eko later(17:49) again altered into ‘3–13August’), and added: “Result: U.S. airstrikes and Kurdish forces break ISIS siege of 50,000 Yazidis on Mount Sinjar” (which he later changed into ‘…break ISIL siege of Mount Sinjar’). Edit summary: “(…) the killings continued during the siege which was only broken on 14 August”. If Eko wants to assert that ‘the siege’ was broken (on 14Aug, later 13Aug), he’ll first have to define in the article what that ‘the siege’ is, but he neglected to do that. We can search in his given ref sources if they perhaps say that anything was ‘broken’, literally or metaphorically, on exactly 14 (or 13) August, which Eko might have wanted to indicate as “the siege”. But those sources don’t mention anything ‘breaking’, or even just ‘happening’, on the 14th. I do find though, in NewYorkTimes13August (ref 15 at 30March; today after my edit: ref 32), a mentioning of something happening on exactly 13Aug: the U.S. government issuing a message, saying: —the ISIL’s “siege of M.S.” had been “broken” —later ‘explained’ as: US strikes and airdrops and Kurdish efforts had allowed Y to evacuate during “several days” —later ‘explained’ as: US “strikes… opened a path for thousands of Y to escape” (from Mount Sinjar).  I’m sorry: we all know that the situation around that mountain around that time was no siege, it clearly doesn’t fit the definition of ‘siege’: ISIL did not want, as far as we know, to conquer those mountains. It was a humanitarian emergency disaster overthere, for sure. It was probably horrible, for those Yazidis in those mountains. But a situation being horrible and disastrous doesn’t make it a ‘siege’. (We may want to consider starting a new section, ‘Propaganda’, in which we tell that the U.S government wanted us to believe on 13 August 2014 that a ‘siege’ had been ‘broken’; but we shouldn’t go as far as making that Obama administration’s propaganda also the Wikipedia propaganda.) The opening of a path however needed to be presented more explicitly in our article, as I hereby did today, in section 3 (‘Refugees’ crisis’). But: that ‘opening of a path (helping Y to evacuate)’ did not happen specifically on the 13th of Aug, it happened gradually over six days (8–13Aug), which makes Eko’s edit summary—even if he addressed opening that path as ‘breaking the siege’—incorrect. And: opening a path to evacuate (regardless on which day(s) it took place) is not ‘massacring’, nor ‘being massacred’, nor a ‘result of a massacre’, as Eko labeled it in that infobox in this edit. That infobox of this article called ‘Sinjar massacre’ (= event (A)) must summarize the ‘massacre’, and not confuse ‘massacre’ with the evacuation of refugees (= event (B)). The massacre was in our article at that moment still confined to the period ‘2–5Aug’ and should therefore not, in the infobox, erroneously be extended to 14 or 13 August. (Sure: “killings continued” until 14 August, because every day people in the world are being killed, but we had and have still no information in our article about killings in Sinjar after 5Aug.)
 * 2) 17:49:
 * 3) infobox: ‘Date: 3–13August’: see above (16:10).
 * §3: “The siege was officially declared to be broken on 13 August…allowing…”. See above (16:10): as long as our article doesn’t define a ‘siege’, it can’t contend or suggest that a ‘siege’ was ‘broken’. (We do see however the U.S. government on 13 August saying and suggesting ‘a siege had been broken’ which was an act of propaganda (see my arguing above by 16:10); if we want, we can start a new section ‘Propaganda’ to present this fact.)
 * 1) edits 17:52 and 17:53, in infobox: Eko changed casualties from ‘500–2,000’ Yazidis to ‘5,000’, referring to source Daily Mail 14Oct presenting a UN Report. But that is not solely about (event (A)) Sinjar massacre, it is about event (C): the wider massacre in (northern) Iraq, which at the time was still clearly mentioned in our article under section 5. Sure, the DM article speaks of ‘Sinjar town’ and of 5,000 deaths, but it doesn’t say 5,000 deaths in Sinjar.
 * 2) 17:59:
 * 3) infobox ‘casualties…’ changed into rather mysterious information but sticking to the incorrect ‘5,000’ (see above, 17:52).
 * 4) lead section:  more-or-less brought into accordance with the incorrect ‘5,000’. (As I said by his edit of 17:52: Eko apparently was mixing-up event (A) with event (C).)
 * 5) lead section: changed ‘…city of Sinjar…’ into: ‘…Sinjar and surrounding area…’ (unmotivated). The body text at that time still speaks only of massacre in city of Sinjar, and a lead section must correctly summarize the body text.
 * 6) 18:09: adds in section 3, that: “while the siege of Mount Sinjar was taking place, ISIL reportedly killed hundreds of Yazidis in at least five of the nearby villages”, referring again to the Daily Mail article. Uncorroborated: I don’t see that DM article describing any village as “near Sinjar”—not to mention that ‘siege of MS’ is still not defined (see above). (Sure: the DM article speaks of hundreds, yes even 5,000, people killed, but that is event (C), not event (A): see above, 17:53.)
 * 7) 20:25, infobox: changed the ‘date’ (incorrect since 16:10) into ‘August 2014’. Motivation: “Compromise regarding the date…(etc.)” I keep repeating myself: our article at that time still speaks simply and clearly of massacre in Sinjar 2–5August.
 * 8) 23:02LightandDark2000 (LD2), in Infobox, ‘Result:…break…siege…’, adds a date: “13 August”. Apparently he tried to bring the infobox in accordance with that (incorrect) statement since 16:10/17:49 about ‘breaking a siege on 13Aug’ by adding that date. But, as I said (see 16:10): that ‘result’ does not belong in that infobox.
 * 9) edit 1April,21:09, LD2 in infobox changed: ‘Location’ from ‘city of Sinjar’ into ‘Sinjar District’, and in lead section: ‘…surrounding area’ (incorrect since 17:59) into ‘…Sinjar District’ (with sneaky wikilink). Presumably he tried to bring lead and infobox in accordance with informations in lead since 17:59 (‘surrounding area’) and in §3 since 18:09 (‘nearby villages’) which I’ve shown (above) to be incorrect.
 * 10) 21:10,LD2, lead, added:’(killing…in Sinjar…) during August 2014’. (Motiv.:“Adding the date”.) Again: LD2 seems to ‘adjust’ the lead to a remark in infobox since 30March,20:25: “August”, which I’ve shown (above) to be incorrect.
 * II. Number of deaths (§2.1)

One of the old sources, which we thought to refer to massacre in city of Sinjar (section §3: CNN, 7 August, ‘2,000 deaths’), in a new source(New Yorker, 6 August) appears to refer to massacre in district of Sinjar. Therefore, it seems logical to change the scope of the article now to district of Sinjar.

I’ve found two more new sources with estimates of the number of casualties, one referring to Sinjar city, the other to Sinjar district. That brings us on four different counts, which I’ve put together now in a new (sub)section (§2.1). It is important that we make clear that those counts are only estimates, we don’t yet know what the real number is.


 * III. Evacuation of refugees (§3)

I admit that the episode of evacuation of refugees from the Sinjar Mountains seems complicated, and that its presentation in our article on 30March,11:19, was possibly confusing and not good enough. EkoGraf made since then some useful remarks and improvements in section 3, which I’ve preserved in my today’s edit. On the other hand:
 * EkoGraf added assertions that are not in the given sources (30March,16:27: ’coordinate the evacuation…’; ‘broke the siege 14 Aug…’);
 * He added a sentence (16:30: ‘Despite this…’) which elaborated on an incorrect sentence and therefore was in itself inevitably inadequate;
 * Eko wrote two sentences that are linguistically incorrect (17:49: ‘Between 9 and 11…’; ‘…without making any mention of the PKK’);
 * He added two sentences (17:49): “The siege was officially…” and (18:09): “while the siege … nearby villages”, that I’ve argued already above (under I:‘Correcting some edits’) to be incorrect;
 * Along with those (well-meant but miscarried) edits he reshuffled old subsections 3.1 and 3.2 without clearly telling us why, leaving us only to guess what his exact ideas and disapprobations for that section may have been.

But also I have, after studying the material again, the idea that the old version before 30March was not clear and precise enough, and have therefore now rewritten and restructured section 3, hopefully clearer but certainly more precisely based on the given sources—while ofcourse preserving the good edits of EkoGraf. The section now starts with new information of food droppings on 5 and 7 August.

Bejnar, on 2 April, replaced new citations for two contentions that I had called in question earlier that day: ‘…surrounded by ISIL’ and ‘…firing on them’. ‘Firing on them’ is indeed being said in his new source Epoch Times. ‘Surrounded by ISIL’ however is not being said in any of those new sources: only partial surrounding of the Sinjar Mountains is being said, in source guardian 8 August. I’ve corrected the article accordingly.


 * IV. Lead section and old §5

If, as I argued (in II: ‘Number of deaths’), this article presents massacres in both city and district of Sinjar, and we accept the fact that the numbers of deaths are only estimates, ofcourse the lead section must adapt to that new situation. As I said in the beginning of this posting (‘two flaws’): the most logical place to mention that this Sinjar massacre is part of the larger ISIL August 2014 massacre on Yazidis, is in the lead section – which makes old section 5 redundant.


 * V. Section 2 (‘takeover and massacre’)

While I’ve argued above (see II: ‘Number of deaths’) why it is logical to let this article cover the August massacres in district of Sinjar, I’ve, accordingly, added new information in §2, telling how ISIL not only captured the town of Sinjar on 3 August – what we already had described in the section – but also on that day “the Sinjar area”, and how they went about murdering Yazidi civilians there.

I’ve corrected the plea of Tahseen Said on 3 (not 4) August from a new ref source; and called him world Yazidi leader and ‘Prince’ (not emir).


 * VI. Aftermath (§4)

EkoGraf made some good correcting edits here, which I’ve preserved. On the other hand:
 * On 30March,16:38, Eko added: “The mountains had once again been partially besieged by ISIL”, which is not in the given source;
 * At 16:47, he retitled the section into ‘…– New siege’, which is not in any of the sources. (If Eko wants to suggest a ‘second siege’, he’ll first have to define a ‘first’ siege);
 * At 17:59, Eko replaced the mentioning of a U.N. report of October, concerning a larger massacre with 5,000 deaths, from §5 to §4: ‘Aftermath’, without motivation. But that larger massacre which the UN refers to (and which I indicated in this explanation as ‘event (C)’, see above) is better to be mentioned in the lead section, as I argued above, under IV: ‘Lead section and old §5’. (That U.N. report is not specifically about Sinjar or Sinjar mountains, and it is not relating to October events.) --Corriebertus (talk) 16:11, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

First, I want to give you a piece of advice, nobody on Wikipedia will read this much stuff that you wrote and Wikipedia actually requests of you to be short and simple and advises against this much writing. Thus I have no intention of reading everything you wrote. The only thing I will respond is to three things. The 5,000 dead; the time of the killings; the sieges.

The UN was clear when it said 5,000 Yazidis were massacred and all examples it pointed to were from the Sinjar area and the August time period and all news sources that reported on the killings at the time reported of killings from that specific area. There were never any reports on killings of Yazidis outside the Sinjar district. So if you have theories that killings took place outside Sinjar you need to back them up with sources. The time of the killings - sources clearly point to the massacres taking place well into August (which editor Light also agreed to) and not just those first few days of the month. I provided a source now for a massacre taking place in a village as late as 25 August. The sieges - I am not obliged to define anything except to write what is in the sources. And the sources are clear...there was a siege in August which was broken and several months later there was a new partial siege which was also later broken. You can have your personal opinions on the definition of siege and can debate the issue, but Wikipedia is written based on what the sources say and we stick to that. PS I put the 5,000 mention in the aftermath section because the UN report came out two months AFTER the killings. EkoGraf (talk) 18:14, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Forgot one more thing...the different narratives section, I purposely rewrote the text so it would be more encyclopedic because Wikipedia IS an encyclopedia and give it a historical context and you still reinserted it back. I would ask that you please do not do this again. Its non-encyclopedic. Also, you included in the infobox lots of counts from the very first few days. Per WP policy newer sources/reports trump older more out-dated ones. EkoGraf (talk) 18:26, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I made now some more corrections, leaving some of your useful info as well, I hope you will agree to it. EkoGraf (talk) 19:39, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Please. We have already restructured the article to encompass the entire ISIL massacre in the entire Sinjar District during the month of August 2014, along with the closely related (first) Siege of Sinjar, and its immediate aftermath. The article has also been restructured to be more chronologically sound and less biased towards any one report. Most of the editors and readers have apparently been fine with this new order so far. So let's leave it as it is, after all, the information included is backed by reliable sources, and there is no need to completely restructure the article again. LightandDark2000 (talk) 19:46, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Unmotivated edits
Is EkoGraf new on Wikipedia? In that case, I’d have to explain to him: Wikipedia is a cooperative project; and therefore, it is good custom to motivate our edits, as this helps others to understand the intention of those edits. Especially now that we are having discussions already over three issues in this article – see my next three edits in the article – it does not help us to sort those issues out if editors mix those unsolved issues with other edits (which they don’t motivate). --Corriebertus (talk) 12:57, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Evacuation of Yazidis (from mt. Sinjar)
In August2014, a path was cleared to enable Yazidis to evacuate from Sinjar Mountains but there are different narratives about who deserves the credit for that. It is not unusual in wars that events are portrayed differently by different parties. In such cases, it is our (Wikipedia’s encyclopedic) job to clearly present those different views. So, that’s what the article did in subsection 3.2, before EkoGraf on 26April drasticly and for me uncomprehensibly reshuffled that subsection. Something in it seemed to be wrong to Eko’s opinion, but he doesn’t make clear to me what that is. In his—to my opinion—rather gibberish ‘sentences’ 14,15,16 in his posting on this Talk page of 26April he says that something in it was “non-encyclopedic”, but I’ve no idea what was non-encyclopedic in it, and why. And he makes a vague remark about “historical context”, again I’ve no idea what he is talking about. The whole article is ‘history’, if EkoGraf wants to add something to it, fine, but what was he adding? And why does he remove or shuffle that clear presentation of three narratives? --Corriebertus (talk) 12:57, 6 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I made everything clear in the previous discussions and edit summaries (several times) and even LightandDark2000 made attempts to explain it to you so for me this is the last time. The point was to give the text an encyclopidic historical flow and not just this guy claims this, this guy claims that. PS Saying someone is talking gibberish is a violation of WP policy on civility. EkoGraf (talk) 17:15, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the word 'gibberish', I wasn't expecting that EkoGraf would take offence at it. I understand and share EkoGraf’s desire for ‘historical flow’. However: the current presentation of ‘clearing a path’ for Yazidis and evacuating Yazidis was incomplete, not according to the given sources, twice internally contradictory, and was needlessly spreading three (contradicting) versions over two subsections (§3.2 and 3.3).
 * We have four sources reporting that episode: Vice News 16August2014, Global Post 29Aug, Hurriyet 9Aug, and New York Times 13 Aug. Though those reports seem compatible on some aspects, they are different, to a point of suggesting contradiction or dissent, on their attribution of this rescuing operation to one or two parties. In such a case, it is our job not to choose one of those reports as the ‘correct’ representation, but to clearly, without bias, tell to our readers the existing, contrasting, views.
 * But instead, §3.2 started off with an ‘account of events’ that mixes up elements of sources ViceNews (‘path by YPG’), GlobalPost (‘PKK trucks; 35,000 escaped’), and fantasy (‘ending date 11Aug’). Combining selected items from two reports while concealing a conflicting item from one of those reports (GlobalPost states that PKK made the path!) is misleading; mixing it up further with fantasy is even further misleading. Then, the section continued with a clearly contradicting tale: “the route” (synonym for ‘path’) is made by Peshmerga and YPG. Though this correctly represents the version of source Hurriyet, in an encyclopedia we shouldn’t state contradicting versions without explicitly warning the reader that we are about to present contradicting versions. Furthermore, the way of presenting this second (contradicting) story suggests, even states, that it is not the correct story, and that the first given story is the ‘true’ one. But, as I said: we should neutrally present the different views to the reader, not take sides.
 * Then, in section §3.3, came a third, again contradicting version, again without making explicit to our readers that it is a version conflicting with two versions in the previous subsection. It states that the path for the Yazidis is opened by U.S. and Peshmerga – the version from NYT.
 * I’ve now gathered the four differing/conflicting views in one subsection, clearly presenting the apparent ‘clearing a path’ and rescue, but just as clearly presenting the disagreement about who is to be credited for it. (Perhaps my version still contains mistakes on details: anyone may correct them.) The basic ‘flow of history’ here is the clearing of a path for evacuation (see the heading and the first two sentences of the section). But the basic ‘flow of history’ is here also that historical truths aren’t always clear and undisputed, and that disagreeing or conflicting accounts of events sometimes exist. --Corriebertus (talk) 13:43, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Number of Yazidis killed in Sinjar

 * Firstly: EkoGraf did good research by adding the massacres of Hardan, Khocho and Jidala, which indeed also show that we should put the ending date of these Sinjar massacres on 25 August.
 * Secondly: the Daily Mail article of 14Oct2014 (DM) writes that in August, ISIL killed 5,000 Yazidis in Iraq (which event by the way is fully covered in article Persecution of Yazidis by ISIL). EkoGraf in his edits of 26April uses that DM article however to prove that ISIL massacred 5,000 Yazidis in Sinjar, which is not being said in the DM article. Iraq is not Sinjar, Sinjar is a district in Iraq. In his posting on this talk page on 26April, sentence 5, Eko says: “The UN was clear (…) 5,000 Yazidis were massacred and all examples it pointed to were from the Sinjar area (…)”. But to state that ‘UN was clear’, you have to refer to some publication of UN, what Eko did not do, he only referred to the DM article. How does Eko know that all UN examples were in Sinjar if he hasn’t read that UN report? But what would it matter anyway? If a report about Iraq gives examples only in Sinjar – which, as I said, is not yet proven here anyway – it does not mean that everything in the report pertains to Sinjar. The DM article mentions the examples Hardan, Khocho, Jidala (all in Sinjar) and Adnaniya, Quinyeh, al-Shimal, Mosul. How can Eko say that it is clear that those are all in Sinjar? But even if they are all in Sinjar – which is not yet proven – how could that prove that the whole UN report is about Sinjar? We would in that case have to add those numbers of casualties (Adnaniya 200, Quinyeh 90 , al-Shimal dozens) to our article but would not yet have proven that (the DM article has said that) the 5,000 deaths in Iraq of the UN report were all in Sinjar. --Corriebertus (talk) 12:57, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

All of the places listed as examples in the report for the 5,000 are in the Sinjar area and also there were no other reported killings of Yazidis outside that area at that time. EkoGraf (talk) 17:18, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * We still see no source saying that Adnaniya and Quinyeh are in Sinjar. So, if EkoGraf here (again) states that "in the report..." while he doesn't have a report--he is misleading. If his "report" is the Daily Mail article of 14Oct2014: that article does not say those two are in Sinjar. --Corriebertus (talk) 12:08, 31 July 2015 (UTC) [This posting was altered, by Corriebertus, on 31July,13:07. ]
 * As I wrote here on 6 June, we have no source reporting 5,000 killed Yazidis in Sinjar in August. EkoGraf replies 6 June that “in the report”—presumably he means the news website article Daily Mail 14October2014—“all places listed as examples are in the Sinjar area”. ‘Area’? This Wikipedia article is about Sinjar District. Is Mosul in Sinjar District? No: so, the DM article lists also a place outside Sinjar. But even if all listed examples in the Daily Mail article were in Sinjar—what they are not—it would not prove or say that 5,000 people were massacred in Sinjar. Stating or suggesting so nonetheless in our article would be fantasy and deceit. --Corriebertus (talk) 10:43, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I repeat again, the report only talks about the killings of Yazidis. And the killings of Yazidis were at that time reported only in the Sinjar area/district. There were no reported killings outside that area/district. I made no mention of Mosul, the source makes no mention of Mosul and no other sources from that time period mention Mosul. A quick google search verifies that all the places/towns listed in the source are exclusively in the Sinjar district. PS Accusing or implying a fellow editor is making up fantasy and committing deceit is a violation of WP: Civility. EkoGraf (talk) 11:46, 31 August 2015 (UTC)


 * As already mentioned (and ignored by EkoGraf) neither Adnaniya nor Quinyeh are not in Sinjar. BTW, the "mass graves" were empty, see this article from Charlotte Alfred --> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/isis-yazidi-massacre_55ccc5d7e4b0cacb8d33342b — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.224.197.39 (talk) 03:13, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

‘Siege’ is partisan, non-neutral
EkoGraf, in his edit of 26April,18:54, added in the infobox the “Result: U.S. airstrikes (…) break the ISIL siege of Mount Sinjar (…)”. In his posting on this talk page on 26April, sentence 11, he motivated: “the sources are clear… there was a siege”. But I can find only one source in our article saying an ISIL siege of Mt Sinjar has existed in August2014: the US government as paraphrased (not quoted) in the New York Times article of 13Aug2014 saying they had broken an ISIL siege of Mount Sinjar. That source is not to be regarded as neutral though: the US is party in this conflict and has therefore an interest to boast with their successes and make them look and sound as impressive as possible. The objective facts we know about the situation around that mountain around that time don’t comply with the definition of ‘siege’, and the US government is not to be considered an objective source to overrule what we can see and conclude ourselves from all publicly available information. That evacuation of Yazidis from those mountains (see section 4.2) was indeed a succes, for the US and Kurdish groups working to help those Yazidis. But as long as there is no clear and neutral information indicating a ‘siege’ had been going on, I don’t think it is our job to parrot the US government’s propaganda saying it was a ‘siege being broken’. --Corriebertus (talk) 12:58, 6 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I really can not believe you are calling the New York times non-neutral and US government's propaganda. Regardless of your opinion, Wikipedia considers it a reliable source and that's what matters. And its not just them. Other sources clearly indicated at least a partial new siege had already been instituted since October of that year per the sources . And later sources stated a siege was broken in December . So unless you intend to call of the sources US propaganda then there is enough verifiability per WP policy. Your personal opinions of what constitutes a siege does not matter if reliable sources call it as such. EkoGraf (talk) 17:05, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I know that I make silly or stupid mistakes myself, from time to time, but here’s a mistake of EkoGraf : saying that I called the New York Times a non-neutral source. Please, read carefully, also in discussions like this. I have called(6 June) “the US government” a source that is not to be regarded as neutral in some specific matter – I have not said anything like that here about NYT. --Corriebertus (talk) 17:20, 21 July 2015 (UTC)


 * If we want to use the word seige in our article, it must be supported, unless it is plainly obvious that this is the correct word for the situation. I notice that one of the sources listed above does not use the word in its article, but a commenter does. We can't use comments as a reliable source. The fact that one side in a conflict uses a particular term is an indication, but not a definitive statement. They may be just extending the conflict into the public relations arena. A good example is one side calling an event a "massacre" - an emotive word that might just indicate a one-sided military enhagement rather than an atrocity.
 * The NYT is not the US government, but one may quote the other. It seems we have a variety of media sources calling this event a siege. I'm always wary of media describing the military - they often get things wrong. They have a regrettable tendencie to call any tracked military vehicle a "tank", even if it a self-propelled gun, an armoured personnel carrier, or even just a bulldover painted green. I think that to use the word "siege" here, we need consensus amongst the editors, rather than blindly accepting the word from a participant or a media source. --Pete (talk) 20:20, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Discussant Pete: you seem to suggest that Wikipedia is not presenting credible enough evidence that a siege of Mount Sinjar or a siege of Yazidis in the Sinjar Mountains, performed by ISIL, has been taking place between 1 and 13 August 2014. My edit of 21July12:56 noticed in the article in §2 that some news media and a warring party have dubbed that entrapment: ‘siege’. (I forgot to add possibly the most important party (US gov.) and most influential medium (NYT) who did so: I added them today.) Our article in §2 does not assert that it is a correct indication for that situation, and I agree that we should not suggest that the term ‘siege’ is used as a correct term for that situation.
 * The only problem in the article was until today the statement in §3.3‘Mountain siege ends’: it was phrased absolute; I’ve changed it now into an opinion of the US government. --Corriebertus (talk) 12:16, 27 July 2015 (UTC) [ Slightly adapted, by Corriebertus, 2 August 2015, 16:55 GMT. ]

I will repeat like before. Lightanddark and myself explained to you the reasoning behind our edits, despite your claims we are making unmotivated edits. What you think about sources calling the events a siege is your personal POV. Wikipedia's policy on common names is clear on this issue. And the common name the sources use to describe this event is siege. EkoGraf (talk) 11:21, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Empty mass graves
"I went to seven mass grave sites with local police and I found there wasn't a single body there." --> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/isis-yazidi-massacre_55ccc5d7e4b0cacb8d33342b — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.224.197.39 (talk) 02:58, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This is taken from the article out of context. Quote want the article says our don't add. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 13:09, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Full quote: "I went to seven mass grave sites with local police and I found there wasn't a single body there. They said the bodies were decomposed and their bones scattered by wild animals, so they had to collect the remains and other evidence and take it to the Forensic Medicine Institute in Dohuk. It's a pity. If they had international experts, they could have done forensic analysis at the site. Now some of that evidence is potentially lost." What are you, an ISIL troll?--93.70.1.9 (talk) 22:35, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Only 67 dead Yazidis
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/isis-yazidi-massacre_55ccc5d7e4b0cacb8d33342b "The remains of 67 people found in mass graves in northern Iraq were finally laid to rest this week, Kurdish media reported. They were members of Iraq's Yazidi minority, killed by the Islamic State militant group, also known as ISIS, as it rampaged through the community's homelands near Mount Sinjar one year ago, according to Rudaw news agency." --217.224.201.10 (talk) 04:25, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Bullshit. Just a few other examples:


 * one mass grave with 25 bodies found by Peshmerga on 1 February 2015. And this was already the tenth mass grave found in or near Sinjar between December 2014 and 1 February 2015. (http://www.rferl.org/content/another-yazidi-mass-grave-found-near-sinjar/26826469.html)
 * another mass grave with 23 corpses found on 6 February 2015 near Bardiyan. (http://www.rferl.org/content/iraq-another-yazidi-mass-grave-found/26835108.html)
 * 37 corpses found in a mass grave near Sinuni (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/11/12/mass-grave-yazidis-iraq-tells-horror-story/75640706/)
 * mass grave with over 70 bodies found east of Sinjar on 14 November 2015 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mass-grave-of-yazidis-unearthed-near-iraqs-sinjar_56475c97e4b08cda348907e2)
 * as of 28 November 2015, six mass graves have been found in Sinjar, containing the remains of over 400 people (http://www.peacetimes.news/2015/11/28/another-mass-grave-found-at-sinjar/). The latest contained 120+ corpses alone. (http://www.aol.com/article/2015/11/28/sixth-mass-grave-found-in-city-formerly-controlled-by-isis/21274260/)

And there are more. Maybe somebody could put these infos in the text?--93.70.1.9 (talk) 22:49, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Reference 19 is unreliable
Turkish press is closed and it is unreliable. Check the press freedom index. Be careful when you use Turkish sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ferakp (talk • contribs) 15:41, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Sinjar massacre. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20140816223430/http://www.todayszaman.com/diplomacy_davutoglu-turkish-aid-air-dropped-to-yazidis-in-sinjar-mountains_354865.html to http://www.todayszaman.com/diplomacy_davutoglu-turkish-aid-air-dropped-to-yazidis-in-sinjar-mountains_354865.html
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20151117021143/http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/middle-east/article24777757.html to http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/middle-east/article24777757.html

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Photograph
This photograph is featured in the article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ISIS.in.Sinjar.jpg, is there any proof that this is a real photograph? It looks fake, no reason for a photograph to be being taken, the fake flag taped to the wall etc. Image page also has no references of where it was found. Tyrroi (talk) 18:12, 25 January 2017 (UTC)