Over a thousand Yazidis return to Shingal from Duhok camps

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displaced on Wednesday announced the “voluntary” return of over one thousand displaced Yazidis to Shingal (Sinjar), after years of living in Duhok camps.

A batch of 1,150 displaced Yazidis residing in the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Duhok returned to their original places of residence in Shingal and surrounding districts and villages, announced Minister Evan Faeq Jabro.

“The coming days will witness another voluntary return of the displaced from the Dohuk camps to their areas in Sinjar,” a statement from the ministry cited Jabro as saying.

Yazidis in Shingal were subjected to countless heinous atrocities, including forced marriages, sexual violence, and massacres when the Islamic State (ISIS) captured the town in 2014, bringing destruction to many villages and towns populated by the minority group. They were forced to flee to displacement camps across Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), around 80 percent of Shingal’s public infrastructure and 70 percent of civilian homes were destroyed during the years of the ISIS war from 2014 to 2017. Fundamental services such as electricity and water are not consistently available, and numerous health and education facilities are yet to be reconstructed after being destroyed during the war. 

Naif Saido, mayor of Shingal, told Rudaw in August that 60 percent of Shingal residents still live in IDP camps and houses in the Kurdistan Region, mainly in Duhok province. He blamed political and financial factors as well as the Iraqi government’s failure to rebuild the houses that were destroyed during the war with ISIS. 

In June, Srwa Rasul, head of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Joint Crisis Coordination Center (JCC) told Rudaw that the returning families to Shingal are often re-displaced due to the unfavorable conditions in the town. 

Political disputes over the town between the federal government and the KRG, as well as the presence of several armed groups, have disrupted the reconstruction of the town. A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report in June slammed Iraqi authorities for failing to adequately compensate thousands of Yazidi families who bore the brunt of ISIS’ atrocities. 

Baghdad and Erbil signed an agreement in 2020 to normalize the situation in Shingal but the deal has yet to be implemented. The United States has repeatedly called on the Iraqi and Kurdish governments to “immediately break the political deadlock” in the town.

Shingal was liberated from the militant group in late 2015, but there is now a myriad of armed forces in the town with various allegiances, including the Kurdistan Region Peshmerga, pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic), and groups affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). They gained footholds in Shingal after ousting ISIS.