Historically, there were many massacres of Yazidis committed by Kurds. The Kurds persecuted the Yazidis with particular brutality.[6] In the year 1832, about 70,000 Yazidis were killed by the Kurdish leaders Bedir Khan Beg and Mohammed Pasha Rawanduz.[7] During his research trips in 1843, the Russian traveller and orientalist Ilya Berezin mentioned that 7,000 Yazidis were killed by Kurds on the hills of Nineveh near Mosul, shortly before his arrival.[8]