Yazidis Return Home to Face Economic Blockade

Currently in Sinjar there are several factions affiliated with the PKK. These include the Sinjar Resistance Units, led by a fighter known as Mazloum Shengal and made up of around 2,000 fighters, some of whose salaries come from the Iraqi federal government. There is also the female-only Sinjar Women's Protection Units and an Arab militia, the Nawader al-Shammar, made up of around 250 fighters, mostly from the local Shammar tribe.

It fights with the above units and its members’ salaries are paid by the Iraqi government. The impact of the latter group on the ground is relatively small compared with the impact of the Yazidi forces controlling large parts of Sinjar, and supported by the PKK.

Meanwhile the “opposition”, the KDP-affiliated forces, are made up of the Iraqi Kurdish military, known as the Peshmerga, the Iraqi Kurdish state security forces, known as the Asayish, as well as around 10,000 KDP party members in the district.

While the PKK-affiliated units control the southern part of the Sinjar area, the KDP and its associates are in charge of northern and eastern parts.

There is also a very important third fighting party involved. These are the Yazidi Protection Forces, led by Haider Shasho and affiliated with Iraqi Kurdistan’s other major political party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK. According to Daoud Jundi, one of the Yazidi Protection Forces’ most senior leaders, this group tries to remain neutral and to stop the other two forces from fighting each other.

In practical terms, there has been a kind of economic siege going on for the past two months, Jundi told NIQASH in a phone interview.