Mr. Ahmed Khudida Burjus:

I thank the Chairman. I believe the Deputy asked a specific question so and I will quickly answer. In terms of genocide recognition, parliaments or governments in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Armenia, Portugal and the European Parliament have recognised the genocide. We hope, therefore, that Ireland will follow these countries and recognise and acknowledge not only the genocide but also Isis crimes against all communities, especially the minority communities in Iraq and Syria.

This would be a moral support for all victims and all communities there. It would also help as an important step towards justice. We hope the committee will include this on its agenda.

There were a couple of questions about education, what we are doing now and what the needs are on the ground. Basically, even before the ISIS attacks, Sinjar had been neglected and persecuted systematically by the current Government and, before that, by the Government of Saddam. For example, I graduated from Sinjar. We have almost 5 million people there, including in the surrounding area. There is no university there. We have an institute. We have what we call villages. In the village I lived in, there were approximately 30,000 people and we had only three or four schools.. This is for all the people in all the region. What was there ISIS has destroyed and we have been left with a broken education system. It was already broken before ISIS. This is why the needs are very great in terms of education.

I will give a few examples. In an assessment over six months in Sinjar, we found that almost 30,000 students in primary, middle and secondary schools had only 120 formal teachers and 400 volunteer teachers. For instance, a school of 600 students has only a few teachers. There has been general spending from the international side and it has supported the provision of 35 teachers in high schools between 2018 and this January. There have also been other initiatives from other organisations. These are all temporary solutions, however, and only help for a short time. We need funding to rebuild schools. We need to hire more teachers. We also need school supplies. We receive very small but generous support from Irish teachers' organisations, which support informal educational programmes to help children to learn English and other activities after school.

There was a question about other countries. I would like to acknowledge some of the work that has been done by international organisations and countries, including the US, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and other countries. For example, the US has been heavily involved in providing mental health support and psychological support case management. The Netherlands has also helped over the past two years in providing these types of supports. There have been 700 beneficiaries, mainly survivors. The UK has helped with demining the area. I cannot mention all of the activities supported by all of the countries. We thank all of them and we hope Ireland will also come forward and get involved in some activities. What has been done is appreciated but it is really not enough. It is very little compared to the needs of people. As I have said, all sectors are destroyed and we need to rebuild.