The PKK terrorist organization is digging tunnels in Iraq’s Sinjar and forcefully abducting children while using the district as a base and transfer point between Syria and Iraq, an Iraqi official said on Saturday.

Dayan Cafer, Duhok province’s Migration, Migrants and Crisis Management Center provincial head told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the United Nations and affiliated institutions are moving away from the region, increasing the burden on local administrations.

"The Iraqi government has removed Sinjar and its people from its plans and program," Cafer said, indicating that the displaced cannot return to Sinjar due to the lack of security and stability due to the PKK.

Stating that the PKK terrorist organization kidnapped children in Sinjar and gave them weapons, Cafer said, "Families come here, have the children's names written down and want them to be rescued from the organization. Families are afraid to speak up. Because they are threatened with death," he said.

He also commented on the PKK’s tunnels, saying: "The PKK took an electrician from Sinjar to lay a power line inside the tunnel. The electrician took his family with him and fled from Sinjar and took shelter here. If he was caught, he would have been killed by the organization."

"The Sinjar border is a transit point for sending PKK militants to Syria, Qandil and other regions," he noted.

The PKK established a base in Sinjar in mid-2014 under the pretext that it was fighting against Daesh to protect the local Yazidi community. However, rather than providing protection for the Yazidis, the PKK terrorists ended up forcefully recruiting their children, torturing the locals and disrupting educational and health services. The Yazidis, in return, have staged demonstrations to protest the oppression, demanding that the Iraqi central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) wrest control from the terrorists.

A deal on Sinjar was signed on Oct. 9, 2020 between the KRG and the Iraqi central government to be implemented. Within the scope of the Sinjar deal, a series of security arrangements were to be implemented, including booting out armed groups like the PKK, its affiliates and Iran-backed militias. However, the two governments have failed to take concrete steps.