In an article titled, “The Harsh Realities of Religious Violence in the Middle East,” published recently in RealClearReligion, Farahnaz Ispahani, senior fellow at the Religious Freedom Institute, and Tugba Tayeri-Erdemir, research associate at the University of Pittsburgh, argue, “…the Middle East is even less multi-cultural, multi-faith, and multi-ethnic than it was at the time of the rise of ISIS in 2012.”

Ispahani and Tayeri-Erdemir focus on the plight of the Yazidis to shed light on the realities of religious violence in the region.

“The Yazidis survived 72 earlier attempted genocides,” they write, “and stayed in their traditional homeland, until the formation of ISIS. The Islamist group killed at least 5,000 Yazidi men and enslaved their women and children, forcing thousands of women and girls into sexual slavery. Half a million Yazidis became refugees.”

Characterizing the dire consequences of this most recent episode of Yazidi persecution, they write:

The latest attempt at the annihilation of the ancient Yazidi people was also the final nail in the coffin for diversity in the greater Middle East, which has witnessed a major shift in demographics over the last century and a half.

Real the full article: “The Harsh Realities of Religious Violence in the Middle East.”