Politics

Failing security, services keep Iraq's displaced Yezidis from returning home

The mayor of the northern Iraqi city of Sinjar (Shingal) criticized Baghdad's ongoing efforts to close displacement camps because members of the Yezidi (Ezidi) religious minority who fled the area after it was violently occupied by the Islamic State in 2014 are still not able to return because of security concerns and a stark lack of both services and infrastructure available in the area.

Mustafa Shilani 2020/02/21 07:28

middle east Iraq Sinjar Shingal Yezidis Ezidis Baghdad Ninewa

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The mayor of the northern Iraqi city of Sinjar (Shingal) criticized Baghdad's ongoing efforts to close displacement camps because members of the Yezidi (Ezidi) religious minority who fled the area after it was violently occupied by the Islamic State in 2014 are still not able to return because of security concerns and a stark lack of both services and infrastructure available in the area.

“The decision of the minister of Migration and Displacement [MoMD] to close displacement camps in Iraq is a poorly-calculated one because 80 percent of the displaced people of Shingal have not returned to their homes,” said Mayor Mahama Khalil.

He also explained that Shingal is suffering from the presence of multiple armed groups, saying, “The Iraqi forces, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), and factions of the Kurdistan’s Workers Party (PKK) all complicate the security situation of the district for the worst.”

“If the Iraqi government truly wants the crisis to end, it should provide desperately-needed services for the Zardasht displacement camp, located a few kilometers from the center of Shingal city,” he argued, “or else rebuild Shingal and provide security and basic services so the people can go back to their homes.”

Iraq declared a “final victory” over the so-called Islamic State in December 2017, three years after the terror group overran roughly a third of the country’s territory. Its fighters, however, continue to wage an insurgency in multiple provinces.

On February 14, an 11-year old female member of the Yezidi (Ezidi) religious minority who was kidnapped six years ago by the Islamic State and lost her mother and brother in an airstrike returned to meet extended family in the Kurdistan Region’s Duhok province on Wednesday after being located in an infamous displacement camp in Syria.

Friends and relatives of the girl were waiting to welcome her back from Syria with joy and celebration. Nineteen of Malek’s relatives were also abducted by the Islamic State, and the fate of several of them is still unknown.

“If the government provides services and stability in the liberated areas,“ the Mayor Khalil concluded, ”the people would go back to their homes willingly.”

Editing by John J. Catherine