Shingal mayor warns against transfer of Iraqis from Syria who lived under ISIS

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The mayor of Sinjar (Shingal) has called for a stop to the imminent relocation of at least 32,000 displaced Iraqis from Syria who are set to return to camps in the Nineveh province.

Mahma Khalil, the Mayor of Shingal, told local media in a statement that although the group of returnees  consists of a few Yezidi (Ezidi) families who escaped Islamic State captivity in Syria, the majority are women and children who lived under the terror group’s rule.

Khalil warned the Iraqi government that without adequate screening, there might be terrorist sympathizers among the returnees and even possible Islamic State sleeper cells.

Those who lived under Islamic State rule “are like time bombs that can poison the ideology of our youth, promote terrorism, and harm our society,” he stated.

The mayor reminded that without proper rehabilitation programs for the returnees, the people of Nineveh and the rest of Iraq would pay the price in the future.

The 32,000 are expected to settle at the Al-Jadah and Hamam al-Alil refugee camps in Nineveh governorate.

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Shingal is located some 128 kilometers (80 miles) west of Mosul and 380 kilometers (236 miles) west of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region.

The city is the historic land of the Ezidis, an ethnoreligious minority who suffered a brutal genocide at the hands of the so-called Islamic State.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany