Secretary of State John Kerry will announce that the United States has determined that ISIS’ action against the Yazidis and other minority groups in Iraq and Syria constitutes genocide, according to two senior U.S. officials.
Kerry will make the announcement at 9 a.m. ET at the State Department.
This is the first time that United States has declared a genocide since Darfur in 2004.
The House of Representatives on Monday unanimously passed a resolution labeling the ISIS atrocities against Christian groups in Syria and Iraq “genocide,” a term the State Department had been reluctant to use about the attacks and mass murders by the terror group.
The move, aimed at ramping up pressure on the Obama administration, appears to have worked.
The measure was non-binding, but both Republicans and Democrats in the House joined together 393-0 to back a “sense of Congress” saying the crimes committed against Christians, Yezidis and other ethnic and religious minorities in the region amount to war crimes and in some cases, genocide.
Republicans Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, whose Nebraska district is home to the largest group of resettled Yezidis in the U.S., authored the resolution with California Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo.
During debate on Monday, Fortenberry noted it was a rare instance of an issue that has “risen above the petty and difficult differences we often work out on the floor of the House of Representatives.”
Under a deadline set by Congress, the State Department had until Thursday to formally to decide whether it will issue a comprehensive genocide designation.
