She asked the U.S. to help Yazidis locate and rescue their loved ones in captivity, to help those who have been recovered from ISIS captivity, and to assist Yazidis in rebuilding their homeland.
And young people recovered from ISIS captivity need support and psycho-social care, she added, since they have been traumatized.
In March of 2016, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that "in my judgment, Daesh [ISIS] is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yazidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims."
"Our hope was that this would be followed by action," Ibrahim said, like helping rebuild the area, providing security for religious and ethnic minorities against reprisals or extremists attacking them, and bringing the ISIS perpetrators to justice.
"Our hope is that Yazidis will be assured that they will be able to go back to their homes," she said, or that they will be able to "emigrate somewhere else." Although ISIS militants have largely been cleared out of Iraq, their ideology remains, she said.
"Under the same ideology, a different group may attack us," she said.
Former congressman Frank Wolf, a distinguished senior fellow of the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative, also testified that while he visited communities in the region, locals expressed concern about various military and militia groups taking a commanding role in the towns.
The Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Forces, were one militia group in particular "largely backed by Iran" and "filling the vacuum left post-liberation," Wolf said. In the Sinjar region, the control by the militia units has scared off many Yazidis from returning to their homes, he said.
Unless countries like the U.S. take further action to help the displaced minorities in northern Iraq by the end of the year, they could depart for good, Wolf said.
"I am sad to say that if bold action is not taken by the end of the year, I believe a tipping point will be reached and we will see the end of Christianity in Iraq in a few short years and a loss of religious and ethnic diversity throughout the region," he said.
This "could result in further destabilization, violent extremism and terrorism across the Middle East," he said. "In other words, ISIS will have been victorious in their genocidal rampage unless concrete action is taken."
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Lauren Ashburn, anchor and managing editor of EWTN News Nightly, told the subcommittee of her reporting trip to the region in April. "Christians in Iraq are on the brink of extinction," she said.
The village of Batnaya, which she visited, had been nearly destroyed entirely by ISIS, she said. ISIS fighters decapitated a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the church, defaced pictures of Christ, and "bullet holes mark the place where a cross once hung," Ashburn said. "Every Christian symbol I could see had been defaced or obliterated. I could not hold back my tears."
Matt Hadro was the political editor at Catholic News Agency through October 2021. He previously worked as CNA senior D.C. correspondent and as a press secretary for U.S. Congressman Chris Smith.