It has been nine years since the Daesh terrorist group launched an unprecedented attack on Sinjar in Iraq’s Mosul, the traditional home of the Yazidi community. Forced to flee further north, the community, now living in the Sharia refugee camp in Dohuk, yearn for a return to Sinjar.

Fed up with tough living conditions in the camp, they complain lack of progress in a deal for the withdrawal of the terrorist group PKK from Sinjar. In an Aug. 3, 2014, attack on the Sinjar district, where Yazidis live, 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.

Sinjar holds a strategic position as it is located approximately 120 kilometers (74 miles) from Mosul and is close to the Turkish-Syrian border. "Yazidis, who were displaced from their homes due to Daesh terrorism, cannot return to Sinjar today because of PKK terrorism. Our country will continue to stand by the Yazidi community against the atrocities and threats it faces," the Turkish Consulate-General in Irbil, the seat of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), said in a statement marking the anniversary of the Daesh attacks.

Irbil and Baghdad 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.

Sara Revo, a 70-year-old Yazidi woman whose son was killed by Daesh, recalled the tragedy Daesh struck upon the community. Revo told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the terrorist group abducted nine people from her family as well. "We had little opportunity to flee when they came. It was a dark day. They took the men. I begged them to give them back but one Daesh terrorist struck me with his rifle. I was unconscious for two days," she recalled.

Revo was held captive for one year before she was freed. She found her slain son later but could only recognize him from his clothes as the body had already decayed. Revo’s only hope now is returning to Sinjar. "If the PKK was not there, most of the people here in camps would go back to Sinjar. They are afraid the PKK would kidnap their children. They are afraid the same things under Daesh will happen," she said.

Bakir Garis, another elderly Yazidi, said he had nothing but a small bottle of water and a piece of bread when he escaped Sinjar when Daesh came. "I will never forget that day," he said. Garis and others fled to the mountains. Two young men in his group scavenged for food in nearby villages. Finally, they settled in the Dohuk camp. "I will stay here as long as they (PKK) stay there (in Sinjar)," he said. The PKK is known for its abduction of Yazidi children. The community has previously staged protests, calling for their release.

Addressing an event to mark the anniversary in Irbil on Thursday, Nechirvan Barzani, president of KRG, said the PKK and its affiliates brought only trouble, unrest and instability to Sinjar and "deepened the wounds" of Yazidis. KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said at the same event that "illegal groups" should leave Sinjar for Yazidis to return home.

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 that emerged in Iran over 4,000 years ago and is rooted in Zoroastrianism. Organized into three castes, Yazidis pray to God facing the sun and worship his seven angels, led by Melek Taus, or Peacock Angel. Their holiest site is Lalish, a stone complex of shrines and natural springs in Iraq's mountainous northwest. Yazidis discourage marriage outside of their community and across their caste system.

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.

After the massacres, some 100,000 Yazidis fled to Europe, the United States, Australia and Canada, according to the United Nations. Among those who found refuge in Germany was 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad who was captured, raped and forced to marry a Daesh member before she was able to escape.

In May 2021, a special U.N. investigation team said it had collected "clear and convincing evidence" that Daesh had committed genocide against the Yazidis. Six months later, a German court was the first in the world to recognize crimes against the Yazidi community as genocide. Germany's lower house of parliament in January also recognized the 2014 massacres as "genocide," following similar moves in Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands.