Iraq’s Yazidi community is lamenting the terrorist group PKK’s occupation of their homeland, Sinjar, a decade after they had to leave due to attacks of Daesh terrorists and take refuge further north in the Sharia refugee camp in Duhok.
In an Aug. 3, 2014, attack on the Sinjar district, the historic land of Yazidis, Daesh terrorists kidnapped and killed thousands of people, including women and children, or detained them in areas they controlled.
Approximately 300,000 people lived in Sinjar before the attacks, with two-thirds of them being Yazidis and the remaining population comprising Sunni Kurds and Arabs.
The PKK terrorist organization managed to establish a foothold in Sinjar in 2014 under the pretext of protecting the Yazidi community from Daesh terrorists. The terrorist group was accused of blocking aid to the Yazidi minority in Iraq while hindering their return to the Sinjar region.
Hundreds of thousands of Yazidis, who had to flee their homes after the Daesh attack, have been living in the camps in northern Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) under harsh conditions.
Baghdad and KRG capital Irbil signed a deal in 2020 to end the presence of the PKK in Sinjar, but it has not been implemented yet.
The Yazidi community is concerned that the PKK, notorious for kidnapping children to bolster its ranks, will do the same once they return to Sinjar.
Celal Casım, a Yazidi living in the Sharia camp since 2014, said Sinjar needs peace and security and that the community cannot return under current circumstances.
"Armed elements in Sinjar (PKK) are a big obstacle to our return," Casım told Anadolu Agency (AA). "Sinjar must be rid of armed groups and made administratively, militarily safe for refugees to be able to return."
Pointing out poor conditions at tents and soaring unemployment in Sinjar, Casım warned that the promised aid for those returning there was "not enough."
Another Yazidi, Ture Murad, said the Sharia camp offered better living than Sinjar despite difficult conditions.
"We want to return home, but chaos reigns there right now because there’s no opportunity to live there. At least we are safe here in the camp and we’re not afraid," she said.
Another Yazidi woman, Hohe Halef, whose mother, sibling, sister-in-law and niece were kidnapped by Daesh, said even though Sharia camp tents sometimes burn down, the community doesn’t wish to return to Sinjar since it’s not safe there.
"There is no security there because of the YPG (PKK’s Syrian offshoot) and other armed groups," Halef told AA. "They would take our children away, so we don’t wish to go back."
The Yazidis, whose mass killings were recognized as a genocide by the United Kingdom earlier this week, are a Kurdish-speaking ethno-religious minority found mainly in Iraq.
They are followers of an ancient religion rooted in Zoroastrianism that emerged in Iran over 4,000 years ago.
Of the world's nearly 1.5 million Yazidis, the largest number, 550,000, lived in Iraq before the Daesh attacks in 2014.
Daesh attacked the Yazidi bastion of Sinjar in August 2014, killing over 1,200 people, leaving several hundred children orphaned and destroying nearly 70 shrines, according to local authorities. A further 6,400 Yazidis were abducted, around half of whom were rescued or managed to flee.