WATCH: PKK-affiliate group, Shia militia block Shingal admin's return despite agreement

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Following an agreement with Iraqi forces, the key administrators of Sinjar (Shingal) on Wednesday returned to the city to govern the area, but they were blocked at a security checkpoint by a Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) affiliate group, YBS, and the Iran-backed Shia militias, an Ezidi official said.

“The PKK [affiliated] group and Hashd al-Shaabi forces stopped us at a security checkpoint before we could enter the center of Shingal,” the official told Kurdistan 24 on condition of anonymity.

“Now, we are in contact with Nineveh officials and other Iraqi army commanders to resolve this issue,” the Ezidi official added.

On Wednesday morning, the head of Shingal District Council, Badal Nayif, revealed to Kurdistan 24: “After we held meetings with the commanders of the Iraqi army in Nineveh, we agreed on the return of the legitimate administration of Shingal to the city to resume its governmental work.”

The agreement came days after the formation of the new Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi.

“We have been prevented from entering Shingal for over three years. We have contacted the Nineveh Governor to come and resolve the issue, and now we are waiting for him,” another member of the Shingal administration told Kurdistan 24 on Wednesday.

Most of the officials in Shingal, including the mayor and council members, left the pre-dominant Ezidi city at the end of October 2017 after Iraqi troops and Shia militias controlled and pushed the Kurdish Peshmerga out of the area along with other disputed territories.

Over the past few years, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Federal Government of Iraq have disagreed over who would control the disputed territories, including Shingal.

Shingal was home to some 100,000 Ezidis before 2014. Most of the residents fled to the Kurdistan Region and neighboring states after the Islamic State (IS) occupied the area in August 2014.

Ezidis experienced atrocities and mass executions at the hands of the extremist group for years after IS overran Shingal in mid-2014, forcing dozens of thousands of the ethnoreligious minority to flee their homes. Others were not as lucky and remained stranded in the war zone.

IS subjected Ezidi women to sexual slavery, kidnapped children for forced conversion, executed the men, and abused, sold, and trafficked girls across areas they controlled in Iraq and Syria.

Although Peshmerga forces with the support of the US-led coalition liberated Shingal from IS in November 2015, over 80 percent of the city remains destroyed and is currently under the control of Iraqi forces and Shia militias.

Most of Shingal’s displaced population have refused to return to their hometown due to security concerns, instability, and lack of basic services.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany

(Additional reporting by Masoud Mohammed)