During the current and past years, official statements have been repeatedly made in which they confirm that the file of the displaced and the closure of their camps throughout Iraq has been ended, but the matter has not yet been resolved on the ground, and despite the Ministry of Education announcing the end of the role of its representations in the Kurdistan region, where there are dozens of Arab schools have spread to receive students from displaced families, but thousands of families still live in the camps, led by the Yazidis who were displaced from Nineveh when ISIS invaded the governorate in 2014.
Tens of thousands of families in the governorates of Nineveh, Anbar, Salah al-Din, Kirkuk, and Diyala were forced to flee to camps in their governorates, but most of them headed to the Kurdistan region, which received the largest number of displaced people, led by the Yazidis displaced from the Sinjar district in Nineveh.
A member of the Parliamentary Immigration Committee, Shirwan Dobardani, said during an interview with Al Aalem Al Jadeed, “The conditions are not at all prepared for the return of the displaced people of Sinjar at the present time, and the displaced families will be transferred from the camps in Dohuk and Erbil to another camp in the Sinjar district, since the homes of the citizens are still Devastated, and life is not prepared in security and services for their return.”
Dobardani adds, “Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani recently visited Sinjar and saw the situation of the judiciary himself and saw that the rosy picture that was conveyed to him was completely incorrect. The judiciary still needs more government support so that all families can return.”
He points out that “the Iraqi constitution allows all Iraqis to live in any region or city they deem appropriate for them, and therefore, just as there are representations of the Ministry of Education in other countries that include Iraqi schools, why are schools for displaced persons not maintained in the Kurdistan region, even though they do not cost the state a lot of money.”
Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa al-Sudani visited Sinjar District on March 4, at the head of a government delegation that included the Minister of Health, the Governor of Nineveh, the head of the Liberated Areas Reconstruction Authority, the head of the Sinjar and Nineveh Plain Reconstruction Fund, the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Planning, and the Deputy Commander of Joint Operations, and several advisors and officials.
For his part, the District Commissioner of Sinjar, Nayef Sidou, confirmed, during an interview with Al Aalem Al Jadeed, that “the district needs more government support to achieve stability that will enable the displaced to return, and there are many problems delaying the return of the displaced.”
Sido points out, “The federal government was not able to complete the file of compensation for those affected in full, and what was completed was only 10,000 transactions, and this number is considered nothing compared to the size of the disaster caused by the terrorist organization ISIS in Sinjar and its outskirts.”
He explains, “We still have double and triple shifts in schools, and we have a major shortage of buildings, and therefore Sinjar schools do not accommodate the large numbers of students who will return to the district after their schools are closed in the Kurdistan region.”
On August 3, 2014, ISIS invaded Sinjar district in Nineveh Governorate, and committed bloody massacres, killing thousands of young men, men, and the elderly, while kidnapping more than five thousand girls, young men, and women. It also destroyed most of the homes, buildings, and infrastructure, while booby-trapping the remaining homes.
Since the liberation of the district from the control of the organization on November 13, 2015, many displaced families from the displacement camps have returned to their areas of residence, but most of them returned to the camps due to the lack of services, in addition to the fact that their homes were completely or partially destroyed.
In addition, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Saeed Mammo Zaini, stressed during an interview with “Al Aalem Al Jadeed” that “without implementing the Sinjar Agreement between Baghdad and Erbil regarding the normalization of the situation, the displaced families will not be able to return and live in safety.”
He points out that “Sinjar is still under the control of factions loyal to the Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party, and this party carries out killing, kidnapping, and recruitment of young men and women, and thousands of families fear returning without achieving complete security stability.”
He warns that “it is not possible to risk the return of displaced families at the present time, without achieving the appropriate security and service conditions for them, the most important of which is the removal of the Workers’ Party and the factions loyal to it from the judiciary, and the return of the local government to carry out its work from within Sinjar.”
It is noteworthy that the Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party participated in the operations to liberate the Sinjar district, and in 2018 it formed the Sinjar Protection Units from Yazidis and Yazidi women and trained them to carry weapons to protect the district from ISIS attacks.
The Sinjar Protection Units announced their rejection of the return of the Peshmerga forces to Sinjar and hold them responsible for handing over the judiciary to ISIS because of their sudden withdrawal a day before the organization invaded Sinjar.
While the head of the Yazidi Progress Party, Saeed Battoush, said during an interview with “Al Aalem Al Jadeed” that “the issue of the displaced, especially the people of Sinjar, was exploited by the Kurdish parties and they were traded for the purposes of obtaining their votes in the elections, and also obtaining financial support provided by international humanitarian organizations, and to reflect a positive image that the region embraces the displaced, especially the Yazidi component, which was subjected to genocide.”
Battoush confirms, “Sinjar is completely stable, and the Prime Minister visited the judiciary, and did not see what the Kurdish parties are talking about, in terms of security chaos or the presence of foreign armed elements, what the judiciary lacks is increased government support and compensation for those affected, and this is what the Sudanese promised.”
The federal government had reached an agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government on October 9, 2020, to an agreement to normalize the situation in Sinjar and jointly manage the judiciary in administrative, security, and service aspects, which was called the Sinjar Agreement.
The agreement stipulates that the police will establish security in the Sinjar district, end the presence of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the Sinjar Protection Units, as well as the Popular Mobilization Forces factions, completely remove them from the district, and reconstruct the city.
