Shafaq News- Sinjar

Displaced Yazidis observed on Saturday the anniversary of the Sinjar genocide at the Jam Mishko camp in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), renewing calls to rebuild their hometown, return displaced families, and determine the fate of relatives who remain missing.

The commemoration comes ahead of August 3, the date on which ISIS swept into Sinjar in 2014. The group later killed or abducted an estimated 12,000 Yazidis —atrocities that have since been recognized internationally as genocide.

Faisal Qasim related to Shafaq News that his family lost 33 people who were either killed or remain missing after ISIS fighters captured Sinjar. "Several of them are still unaccounted for," he continued, noting that the Iraqi government has yet to meet displaced families' demands to rebuild Sinjar and provide the conditions needed for their return.

While many families are still waiting for answers, Sahliya Jamo urged the Iraqi government to continue efforts to locate women, children, and men who disappeared during the attack and determine their fate.

"Their families have lived with uncertainty for 12 years and still do not know whether they are alive or dead," she remarked, calling for the return of displaced families and compensation for those affected by the conflict.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces retook Sinjar in 2015. Two years later, the Iraqi army, backed by the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), took control of the district. By early August 2025, Iraq's Mass Graves Directorate had exhumed 68 of the 162 known burial sites in the district, confirming 293 identities, while more than 450 sets of remains remain unidentified. Nearly 2,900 Yazidis are still listed as missing.

Read more: Over 110,000 Sinjar residents still displaced after nearly 12 years