With No Options, Displaced Iraqi Yazidis Return To Homes Destroyed In ISIS Fight

Enlarge this image

Nofa Khudeda (left) and a neighbor in the village of Tel Qasab on the day Khudeda and her husband returned after six years in a camp for displaced Yazidis. Khudeda and her husband, Ali Edo, repaired and renovated the house, which had been looted by ISIS fighters and then militias that fought ISIS.

Jane Arraf/NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Jane Arraf/NPR

Enlarge this image

Almost 200,000 Yazidis are still living in displacement camps in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. Pictured here is Bajed Kandala in 2019.

Andrea DiCenzo for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Andrea DiCenzo for NPR

Enlarge this image

Nofa Khudeda (left) and her husband Ali Edo with neighborhood children just minutes after the couple arrived home in their village of Tel Qasab after six years in a camp for displaced Yazidis.

Jane Arraf/NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Jane Arraf/NPR

Enlarge this image

Shelters meant to be emergency tents house displaced Yazidis on the side of Sinjar mountain in 2019.

Andrea DiCenzo for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Andrea DiCenzo for NPR

World
A Yazidi Woman Searches For Her Lost Daughter, Kidnapped By ISIS 6 Years Ago

World
‘Nothing Left In The World Except These Bones’: Yazidis Search For Mothers’ Remains

The camps are less than a four-hour drive from here, but in the six years since ISIS invaded Sinjar, this is the first time Murad has seen his house.

The straw and mud roof has collapsed, and the concrete house he had started to build before ISIS is still just three walls and a roof. Like other Yazidis, he says he has received no help from the Iraqi government or aid agencies for moving back. There is no running water and no electricity. A project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development has restored main power lines but it doesn’t extend to people’s homes.

«This ruined house is all I have, says Murad, 52. But he still says he’s happy to be back.

«If we stayed in the camp until the end of time, we wouldn’t gain anything, he says. Murad used to farm but now there is no water for crops or transportation to his field. He says if he can get enough money, he’ll put down concrete on top of the sand that is now the floor of their house.

Enlarge this image

Hassan Murad returns to his damaged home in the village of Wardiya, in Sinjar province, with his wife and five young children. He holds the official documents he needed to return. A teenager from the village helps carry things in.

Jane Arraf/NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Jane Arraf/NPR

Enlarge this image

Wadha Ammo holds her youngest of five children while a girl from the village admires the baby. Ammo married her husband, Hassan Murad, while living in a displacement camp and this is the first time she has seen their new home.

Jane Arraf/NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Jane Arraf/NPR

Enlarge this image

A newly paved road has been one of the only repairs done to the heavily damaged market area of the city of Sinjar, northern Iraq, after it was liberated by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in 2015. Almost nothing has changed in the damaged old part of Sinjar since this photo was taken in 2019.

Andrea DiCenzo for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Andrea DiCenzo for NPR

Enlarge this image

Destroyed buildings in the city of Sinjar, northern Iraq, in 2019. The old section of town was heavily damaged in fighting by Kurdish-led, U.S.-backed forces that drove ISIS out of Sinjar in 2015.

Andrea DiCenzo for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Andrea DiCenzo for NPR

Enlarge this image

Ziyad Qirany, a Yazidi shop owner in Sinjar, returned three weeks ago and opened a small clothing store. No other shops are open yet on the street. The tattoo on his arm reads 2014-8-3, the date the ISIS genocide against Yazidis started six years ago.

Jane Arraf/NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Jane Arraf/NPR

Enlarge this image

Destroyed buildings in the city of Sinjar, northern Iraq, in 2019.

Andrea DiCenzo for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Andrea DiCenzo for NPR

Destroyed buildings in the city of Sinjar, northern Iraq, in 2019.

Andrea DiCenzo for NPR

«This is the old part of town and it’s mostly destroyed so business is not that good, Qirany says. «But step by step we hope it will improve.

Sangar Khaleel contributed to this report in Sinjar.