Sinjar lies in the west of Ninewa governorate, bordering north-east Syria to the west and the Kurdistan region to the north-east. Its strategic geopolitical position has made it highly vulnerable since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, and power has changed hands there many times. As a result, its position makes it an area that has known years of conflict, leading to significant displacement of its original population and to serious contamination by explosive ordnance.
The district of Sinjar was once home to more than 500,000 people from various religious and ethnic groups; nevertheless, the district is well known as the homeland predominantly of the Yazidis. The Yazidis are among the oldest peoples of Mesopotamia, where their faith emerged more than four thousand years ago. A historically misunderstood group, the Yazidis are mainly of Kurdish ethnicity and have preserved their syncretic religion for centuries, despite many years of oppression and threats of extermination. Since time immemorial other religions have misinterpreted their worship. The Yazidis were denounced as infidels by Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which approved their indiscriminate massacre.
On 3 August 2014, the Islamic State took Sinjar and launched mass killing campaigns against the Yazidis, who were left behind. Most residents fled to escape the Islamic State, and those who stayed were killed or enslaved. According to United Nations estimates, more than 5,000 men were killed in grave massacres and 7,000 women and girls were subjected to sexual slavery, not counting the 3,000 girls, women and children reported missing, according to the Yazidi affairs department of the Kurdistan Regional Government's Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs in November 2018.
Years of conflict in Iraq have caused a considerable number of displacements. At the height of the crisis, in March 2016, the number of internally displaced people reached nearly 3.5 million, many of whom were resettled in camps for the displaced. During the summer of 2017, many displaced people decided to register for a voluntary return to their home area, but that trend gradually slowed during the summer of 2018. Subsequently, in October 2020 and January 2021, 14 camps for the displaced located in federal Iraq were closed by government decision. According to the report by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) entitled Humanitarian Needs Overview Iraq, published in February 2021, 65,000 displaced people left the camps between August 2020 and January 2021.
The federal Iraqi government's decision to close the camps was not followed by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). There are still 25 camps there, housing more than 180,000 internally displaced people in total. Most of the camps in Dohuk governorate are occupied by Yazidis from the district of Sinjar.
The north of Sinjar district and the town of Sinjar were freed from the Islamic State in 2015; the south of Sinjar mountain was freed in April 2017.
The destroyed market of the town of Sinjar (Andrea DiCenzo for NPR)
However, the majority of the 500,000 Yazidis displaced by the 2014 attacks have still not returned home. Many do not want to go back to Sinjar. That choice is explained in particular by the lack of basic services, the fragile security situation and the political instability that prevails there.
Since Sinjar was freed from ISIS in 2015, many international and local NGOs have extended their humanitarian efforts there to meet needs.
Contamination of land by explosive ordnance in Sinjar is one of the main consequences of the years of conflict. It still causes serious social and economic harm to the people of Sinjar who stayed or returned, and it also prevents those still displaced from coming back. Beyond the physical and psychological consequences of accidents, the presence of explosive ordnance blocks any chance of reviving an economy that relied heavily on agriculture and that would offer better prospects to those who return.
In response, HAMAP-Humanitaire and its partner SHO launched a project in the region in August 2021. The project aims to raise awareness among the people of Sinjar of the dangers of explosive ordnance, to clear contaminated land, and to build the skills of our local partner SHO.
