Nearly five years on there is no prospect of these long-suffering IDPs returning to the two settlements they fled from: Siba Sheikh Kheder and Til Ezer (Gir Uzer) in the south of Mount Sinjar.
For the first time, the authorities from the federal government distributed 650 tents for the 2,300 households living in Sardasht camp on Mount Sinjar.
“The Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration had planned to take displaced people back to their hometowns but they didn’t return,” Sardasht Camp Manager Ali Shaabo told Rudaw.
The manager of the camp appointed by the central government says that if by September the IDPs do not return back to their settlements, the government is planning to distribute another 650 canvas tents.
“We’ve demanded more tents because we’ve already checked the numbers of tents needed in the camp. These 650 tents are not sufficient as they’ve been living in the tents for four years, but it’s still good number, but there are still some people who didn’t receive tents,” he added.
While those who collected the tents welcome the gesture from the central government others on Mount Sinjar say the government needs to do more to help the IDPs to return to their settlements.
Til Ezer and Siba Shikh Kheder are two of the several collective settlements established by the Baath regime of Saddam Hussein in late 1970s in a campaign to depopulate the border areas to deprive the Kurdish insurgent groups from using the area to launch attacks on Iraqi security forces.
Sardasht camp is built near Mount Sinjar.
“If humanity is important for the Iraqi government and the international organizations, they have to know that the problems of a nation will not be fixed with a barrel of heating oil or a tent,” Srhan Ato, a camp resident said.
Reporting by Tahsin Qasim
