Six years after Sinjar massacre, support is vital for returning Yazidis

Return to Sinjar has been slow since the officially declared cessation of the ISIL conflict in 2017, largely due to the level of destruction wrought in 2014. In addition to the human catastrophe, ISIL destroyed up to 80 per cent of public infrastructure and 70 per cent of civilian homes in Sinjar City and surrounding areas. © IOM Iraq / Raber Y. Aziz

Sinjar is a district in northern Iraq’s Ninewa Governorate; it was once home to an estimated 420,000 people representing diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. It is widely known as the homeland of the Yazidis, members of an ethnoreligious minority group whose communities are spread across Iraq, Syria and Turkey.