Shafaq News
In winter, snow settles gently on
Mount Sinjar, blurring the line between ruin and landscape. From a distance,
the city below appears calm — almost untouched — as if time had paused rather
than fractured. But Sinjar has never been frozen in time. It has endured it.
Situated in northwestern Iraq, near
the Syrian border, Sinjar occupies a geography that has long shaped its fate.
The mountain rises abruptly from the surrounding plains, stretching for roughly
100 kilometers and reaching elevations of more than 1,400 meters. For
centuries, it has served as both shield and sanctuary — a natural refuge during
moments of threat, and a spiritual anchor for the Yazidi community whose
history is inseparable from the land.
Before 2014, Sinjar was home to an
estimated 350,000 people, the majority of them Yazidis. Life followed a
familiar rhythm shaped by agriculture, seasonal trade, and pastoral livelihoods
tied to the plains surrounding the mountain. Winters were harsh, summers
unforgiving, and survival depended on adaptation. That same isolation, however,
left Sinjar vulnerable when violence arrived.
The rupture came in August 2014,
when ISIS overran the district within days. What followed was not simply a
military takeover, but a campaign aimed at erasing a community. Thousands were
killed. More than 6,000 women and children were abducted. Tens of thousands
fled toward Mount Sinjar or across the border into Syria, leaving behind
emptied villages and a social fabric torn apart almost overnight.
Iraq is home to an estimated 500,000
Yazidis, most of whom historically lived in and around Sinjar in Nineveh
province, with others concentrated in northern Duhok. Their presence in the
region predates the modern Iraqi state, rooted in an ancient monotheistic faith
sustained through oral tradition, sacred geography, and communal continuity. In
2014, that continuity was violently disrupted, turning displacement from an
emergency into a prolonged condition.
Once again, Mount Sinjar became what
it had been in older histories — a refuge. Families climbed its slopes under
siege, trapped for days without adequate food or water. Air drops eventually
broke the isolation, but the episode cemented the mountain’s role not as a
symbol, but as a line of survival.
Nearly a decade later, the physical
and demographic landscape of Sinjar reflects the scale of that rupture. While
the district was retaken from ISIS in late 2015, return has been limited. Less
than 30 percent of Sinjar’s pre-2014 population has returned, according to
displacement tracking data. Many Yazidis remain scattered across camps in the
Kurdistan Region, particularly in Duhok, where temporary shelter has quietly
become semi-permanent life.
Destruction remains widespread, and
more than 70% of residential buildings in parts of Sinjar were damaged or
destroyed during the fighting. Schools, health centers, water networks, and
electricity grids were either heavily damaged or rendered unusable. Reconstruction
has advanced unevenly, hindered by unexploded ordnance, slow funding, and
unresolved political disputes.
Governance in Sinjar remains
unsettled. Administrative authority is divided between Baghdad and Erbil, while
multiple armed forces continue to operate in and around the district. The lack
of a unified security and administrative structure has left public services
uneven, reconstruction slow, and families uncertain whether return is
realistically possible.
This stalemate has endured despite
repeated political pledges to stabilize the area. In October 2020, Baghdad and
the Kurdistan Regional Government signed the UN-backed Sinjar Agreement,
designed to normalize security, consolidate administration, and create
conditions for the return of displaced residents. The accord envisioned the
withdrawal of non-state armed groups, the formation of a mutually accepted
local administration, and the integration of security forces under federal
authority.
Nearly five years on, armed
presences persist, administrative arrangements remain unresolved, and the
agreement’s promises have yet to translate into meaningful change on the ground
— deepening skepticism among displaced families about the feasibility of a
lasting return.
For the Yazidis, displacement
carries consequences that extend beyond material loss. Yazidism is among the
world’s oldest faiths, preserved through oral tradition and an unbroken
connection to place. More than 60 Yazidi shrines across Sinjar were destroyed
or damaged. Entire villages that once anchored religious and social life remain
empty. Children born after 2014 have grown up away from ancestral land,
inheriting memory instead of geography.
The search for justice continues
slowly. Dozens of mass graves have been identified in Sinjar and its
surroundings, with exhumations still ongoing years after ISIS was defeated.
Thousands of Yazidis remain missing. For families, time has not healed the loss
— it has prolonged it, stretching grief across years of waiting.
Economic recovery has proven equally
fragile. Before ISIS, agriculture accounted for a significant share of local
income. Today, large areas of farmland remain unusable due to damage,
contamination, or lack of infrastructure. Employment opportunities are scarce,
public services are inconsistent, and younger residents increasingly leave in
search of stability elsewhere. Return, for many, is no longer a question of
attachment, but of viability.
And yet, Sinjar persists.
Markets reopen in pockets, and homes
are rebuilt one wall at a time. Some families return despite uncertainty,
driven by belonging rather than assurance. Others remain displaced, tied to the
city through memory alone. The result is a place caught between presence and
absence — inhabited, but not whole.
When snow falls again on Mount
Sinjar, it lends the city a brief stillness. The mountain stands as it always
has — a witness to cycles of refuge, loss, and survival. Beneath its slopes,
Sinjar continues to exist in contradiction: a city of striking beauty shaped by
devastation, where endurance has replaced certainty, and return remains
unfinished.
Sinjar is not defined solely by what
it suffered, nor fully by what it has rebuilt. It stands instead as a measure
of what survival looks like when recovery is delayed, justice incomplete, and
memory impossible to erase. Between mountain and plain, the city waits — not
for symbolism, but for resolution.
Written and edited by Shafaq News
staff.
