Dutch minister maintains Yazidi asylum policy despite return concerns

In a letter to parliament on 4 November, asylum and migration minister Bart van den Brink said the Netherlands’ current Iraq policy does not classify Yazidis as a group at particular risk. He said poor living conditions in displacement camps were not, on their own, grounds for international protection; applicants must face persecution or serious harm on return.

Van den Brink said the policy was based on a November 2023 foreign ministry report, which he said did not show that Yazidis faced persecution or serious harm solely because they were Yazidis. The Dutch immigration service, the IND, assesses personal circumstances individually, and Yazidis can receive protection on that basis, he added.

The letter responds to a petition submitted to parliament in September by HeerlenMondiaal, an organisation that opposes returning Yazidis to Iraq. It says they face serious threats and poor living conditions in camps, while return to their home region of Sinjar is not feasible. Many Yazidis fled after Islamic State began its genocide against the community in 2014.

Camp conditions can matter in an individual asylum case. In April, a court in Haarlem overturned the rejection of a Yazidi man’s application, finding that the government had not adequately explained why his return to a displacement camp would not expose him to a real risk of treatment prohibited under European human rights law. The judge pointed to more recent information about shortages of basic services and medical care. The court ordered a new decision; it did not itself grant asylum.

In a separate case that month, a court in Middelburg upheld the rejection of a Yazidi woman’s application. It found that the conditions presented in her case did not meet the high threshold for a breach of the same human rights provision.

Van den Brink said a new Dutch foreign ministry report on Iraq, including the position of Yazidis, was expected in 2026. He would then assess whether the policy should change.