By Sarhad Shaker

ERBIL, Iraq

More than 3,000 Ezidis have remained unaccounted for since parts of northern Iraq -- where they have traditionally been concentrated -- was overrun by the Daesh terrorist group in 2014, according to an Ezidi religious official.

Khairi Bozarni, an Ezidi representative in the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG)'s Ministry for Religious Affairs, made the assertion at a conference devoted to what has been described as the “Ezidi genocide”.

“The fate of 3,102 Ezidis has remained unknown since Daesh overran our towns and cities in mid-2014,” Bozarni said at the conference, which was held Wednesday in the city of Erbil, the KRG’s administrative capital.

According to Bozarni, more than 2,500 Ezidis were killed by Daesh, while another 6,000 -- mostly women and children -- were abducted.

Sixty-six Ezidi places of worship, he added, had been desecrated or destroyed by the terrorist group.

Bozarni called on the international community -- and Iraq’s federal government -- to work on locating the missing people as soon as possible.

KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, he said, had managed to secure the release of more than 2,000 Ezidis abducted earlier by Daesh.

“What’s more,” Bozarni added, “more than 100,000 Ezidis have fled the region -- and Iraq in general -- since the summer of 2014.”

Ezidis are a Kurdish-speaking religious group concentrated mainly near Iraq’s northern city of Mosul and the Sinjar Mountain region.

Smaller Ezidi communities can also be found in Turkey, Syria, Iran, Georgia, and Armenia.