The Iraqi Migration and Displacement Ministry cited minister Evan Faeq Gabro as saying that a new batch of Yazidis, consisting of 293 people, left the IDP camps in Duhok province on Friday and returned to their homes in the disputed district of Shingal.
The minister on Tuesday announced the return of 100 other Yazidis to Shingal, saying the process was conducted in coordination with the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The Yazidis in Shingal were subjected to countless heinous atrocities, including forced marriages, sexual violence, and massacres when ISIS captured the city in 2014, bringing destruction to many villages and towns populated by the minority group. The Yazidis were forced to flee to displacement camps across Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.
Political disputes over the city between the federal government and the KRG as well as the presence of several armed groups have disrupted the reconstruction of the city. A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report in June slammed Iraqi authorities for failing to adequately compensate thousands of Yazidi families who bore the brunt of ISIS’ atrocities.
Srwa Rasul, head of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Joint Crisis Coordination Center (JCC), told Rudaw on Friday that the Iraqi government’s effort to return Yazidis to Shingal is a failure, claiming that only 214 families have returned to the town in the last two years.
However, Pir Dayan Pir Jaafar, the head of Duhok’s migration office, which is linked to the KRG, told Rudaw on Tuesday that a total of around 4,000 Yazidis had returned to Shingal since the beginning of this year.
Rasul accused the Iraqi Migration and Displacement Ministry of “failing to cooperate [with the KRG] regarding the dossier of returning IDPs to Shingal. The Iraqi government has yet to abide by the Shingal Agreement.”
Baghdad and Erbil signed an agreement in 2020 to normalize the situation in Shingal but the deal has yet to be implemented. The United States has repeatedly called on the Iraqi and Kurdish government to “immediately break the political deadlock” in the city.
There is a myriad of armed forces in Shingal with various allegiances, including the Kurdistan Region Peshmerga, pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic), and groups affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). They gained footholds in Shingal after ousting ISIS.
