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Iraqi Yazidis celebrate religion's new year
Thousands of Yazidis celebrated their religious new year at the ancient Yazidi temple at Lalesh in northern Iraq on Tuesday evening.New year is on Wednesday but celebrations are held on the eve.
Lalesh is the holiest Yazidi shrine in Iraq and in the world.
Yazidis are a few hundred thousand strong, mostly Kurdish-speaking religious minority in Iraq who pray to a god called Melek Taus or the Peacock Angel.
They have suffered terribly in the recent conflict, with thousands of them murdered by the Islamic State (IS) group who branded them devil-worshippers.
At least 3,000 Yazidi women and girls are still thought to be in IS captivity, many held as sex slaves.
In the past year most of their areas have been retaken by Kurdish security forces but a lack of reconstruction and a general sense of insecurity prevailing in northern Iraq have kept most of them from returning home.
