79 more Yazidi families return to Shengal

Displaced by the ISIS onslaught in 2014, more Yazidi IDPs have returned to their hometown, Shengal.

SHENGAL

The Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration announced that 79 Yazidi families staying in the camps in Duhok have returned to their hometown, Shengal, and the surrounding areas. According to the ministry, the IDPs returned home voluntarily.

The ministry stated that the displaced migrants can easily return to their lands and that the records of those who want to return home are taken daily in the camps.

Since the beginning of 2023, over 4 thousand IDPs have returned to Shengal. According to Duhok Migration Department, 26 thousand Kurdish families are living in the camps in Duhok, where there are 11 refugee camps housing people from Rojava and 4 camps housing Yazidis.

The KDP, the ruling party in the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, has been preventing the return of Yazidi IDPs who moved to Duhok, Hewler (Erbil) and Zakho after the ISIS onslaught in 2014.

Shengal (Sinjar) 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 gangs began murdering Yazidis in Shengal, the Peshmerga left, leaving the Yazidis behind. HPG-YJA Star and YPG-YPJ fighters came to the Yazidi people's aid in the face of ISIS aggression.

After months of resistance, the fighters who saved the Yazidi people from a larger genocide liberated Shengal. 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.

UN bodies and the European Parliament have recognised ISIS crimes as genocide, as have Armenia, Australia, the US House of Representatives, the Scottish Parliament and the German Parliament (Bundestag).