At Tuesday’s special session of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia, the MPs unanimously passed the draft decision to declare August 3 as a memorial day in Armenia for the victims of the Yezidi genocide in Sinjar.

The author of this legislative initiative was Rustam Bakoyan, Chair of the Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs, and a Yezidi lawmaker from the ruling majority Civil Contract Faction of the NA.

In 2014, the Islamic State carried out the genocide of the Yezidi population in the city of Sinjar in Northern Iraq. As a result, about 50,000 Yezidis became refugees, and several thousand more people were killed.