The Iraqi Minister of Migration and Displacement, Ivan Fayaq, announced that 170 Yazidis staying in the Sharya Camp in Duhok have returned to Shengal (Sinjar).

The minister stated that the return has taken place in coordination with the government and security officials.

Fayaq added that other Yazidis who are staying in the camps in the Kurdistan Region are also preparing to return home.

Since the beginning of 2023, over 4 thousand IDPs have returned to Shengal. According to Duhoq Migration Department, 26 thousand Kurdish families are living in the camps in Duhoq, 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 Duhoq, 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).