75% of Yazidis are still displaced a year after Sinjar takeover

Some 75 percent of Yazidis are still displaced a year after Daesh invaded Sinjar, Director General of the Yazidi Affairs in the Kurdistan Ministry of Religious Affairs Khairi Bozani said.

The militant group occupied the province, 124 kilometres west of Mosul last year, before Kurdish Peshmerga forces – with the help of the international alliance – recaptured parts of it, lifting the siege imposed on thousands of families and fighters who had been trapped in Jebel Sinjar.

In an interview with Turkey’s Anadolu Agency, Bozani said: “According to the latest statistics compiled by the General Directorate of Yazidi Affairs, until 28 July the total number of Yazidis in Iraq is estimated at 550,000 people, nearly 400,000 are displaced while 65,000 are refugees.”

“According to the same data nearly 5,838 Yazidis are still detained by Daesh while 841 people are still missing,” Bozani said, noting that the death toll among the Yazidi community reached 1,280 people; 280 killed in the Sinjar invasion which injured 890.

Bozani pointed out that Daesh blew up 18 Yazidi shrines in Sinjar, Bashiqa, and Bahzani in Nineveh province while 12 mass graves were uncovered in the northern parts of Sinjar, and “we expect to uncover more than that in the southern part, which is still under Daesh’s control”.