Shafaq News – Nineveh

The presence of armed groups in Sinjar, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), remains a major obstacle to the return of displaced Arab and Yazidi families, a member of the Nineveh Provincial Council said on Tuesday.

Council member Mohammed Ahrees told Shafaq News that “Sinjar is currently run by an appointed, unelected administration, while several armed factions, including the PKK, maintain a presence. This situation hinders reconstruction efforts and delays the return of displaced residents.”

The lack of an elected mayor and an effective local government, according to Ahrees, has also negatively affected education, municipal services, health care, and infrastructure.

“Around 75 percent of Sinjar’s Arab population remains displaced in Mosul and the Kurdistan Region, while the rate of Yazidi return has not exceeded 10 percent.”

Earlier this month, Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani expressed regret over the federal government’s “failure” to implement the Sinjar Agreement that was reached on October 9, 2020, to normalize the situation in Sinjar by jointly managing administrative, security, and service affairs.

Sinjar was captured by ISIS in 2014, where the militants committed massacres against the local population. The district was retaken by Kurdish Peshmerga forces the following year.

In 2017, the Iraqi army, backed by the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), asserted control over the area following tensions between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region after the independence referendum. The PKK later formed a local affiliate, the Sinjar Protection Units, which receives salaries from the Iraqi government as part of the PMF structure.