1,700 families displaced by recent Sinjar fighting: DMCR

Displaced Yezidis (Ezidis) arriving in Duhok following clashes between Iraqi army and PKK affiliates YBS forces. (Photo: DMCR)
Displaced Yezidis (Ezidis) arriving in Duhok following clashes between Iraqi army and PKK affiliates YBS forces. (Photo: DMCR)

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Directorate of Migration and Crisis Response in Duhok announced Tuesday that it had registered at least 1,700 displaced families fleeing the recent fighting in the Sinjar (Shingal) district to the Kurdistan Region province.

"The number of displaced people from Sinjar has reached 1,711 families so far, while 200 families have returned to Sinjar for fear of losing their jobs and businesses there," said the director of the Directorate of Migration and Crisis Response (DMCR) in Duhok Dayan Jaafar in a statement.

The DMCR, in coordination with foreign humanitarian organizations, the Barzani Charity Foundation (BCF), and the Iraqi Department of Migration and Displacement, "continues to provide humanitarian aid to the newly displaced" and provides aid to "those living in and outside the camps," Jaafar added.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)-affiliated Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) recently clashed with the Iraqi Army as the latter sought to assert federal authority in the Yezidi-majority town.

Earlier, on May 4, the DMCR said renewed clashes in Sinjar would likely cause further displacement of civilians, noting that it had received more than 1,200 families by that time.

The Sinjar agreement was signed between the Government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in October 2020. Its purpose is to restore and normalize the situation in the Yezidi-majority region and remove the various armed groups that continue to operate in it.

Read More: KRG and Baghdad reach administrative, security agreement on Sinjar