42 more Yazidi families return to Shengal
42 more families, who were displaced from their land during the 2014 onslaught and had been living in a camp in Duhok since, have returned home.
More Yazidis displaced from Shengal during the genocidal onslaught of ISIS in August 2014 are returning home.
Yesterday, 42 families living in Çem Mişko Camp in Duhok city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq returned home after 11 years. The returning families, consisting of 163 people, settled in Digur sub-district and the villages of Sêkêniye and Rembûsî. Many more families are expected to return home in the coming days.
More than 140 thousand IDPs from Shengal are reportedly staying in camps in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq).
While the Shengal Autonomous Administration has repeatedly called for the return of those living in camps to their lands, the Kurdistan Regional Government did not allow the IDPs to return to their lands for a long time.
A few days ago, a fire broke out in a tent sheltering a Yazidi family in Xankê Camp in Duhok. A woman and her four children suffered severe burns as a result of the fire. The Yazidi woman, named Înas Dexîl Hemo, died after two days of treatment in the Duhok Emergency Department. Her children are still being treated and two of them are reported to be in serious condition.
Background
The city of Shengal (Sinjar) in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq is the last contiguous settlement area of the Yazidi community. Thousands of Yazidis were murdered, and thousands of women and children were taken prisoner in the 3 August 2014 onslaught on Shengal by ISIS militants. While ISIS began murdering Yazidis in Shengal, the Peshmerga left, leaving the Yazidis behind, unprotected. The guerrillas of HPG (People’s Defense Forces) and YJA Star (Free Women’s Troops) and fighters of the YPG (People’s Defense Units) and YPJ (Women’s Defense Units) came to the Yazidi people's aid in the face of ISIS aggression. Thanks to a months-long selfless struggle, the city was liberated on 13 November 2015. After the liberation of the city, the HPG and YPG/YPJ subsequently withdrew in 2017. People who returned to their land after Shengal's independence reformed, established defensive units and built their institutions.
