7 years since the liberation of Shingal

7 years since the liberation of Shingal

Nov 14 2022

ARK News... On Sunday, November 13, 2022, marked the seven-year anniversary of the liberation of the Shingal/Sinjar district from ISIS terrorist gangs.

On October 21, 2015, Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani pledged in a speech from Mount Shingal to liberate the region.

In an operation directly led by President Barzani, the Kurdistan Peshmerga managed on November 13, 2015, to liberate Shingal, with the support of the international coalition.

ISIS invaded the Shingal district, the homeland of the Yazidi Kurds on August 3, 2014, where the organization's terrorists committed the most heinous crimes against the Yezidis, as they killed men, kidnapped thousands of women and girls, and practiced sexual slavery against them after taking them as slaves, where they were sold in the markets of Mosul, Raqqa and other areas occupied by the organization, while tens of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes to camps in the Kurdistan Region.

Although the Peshmerga forces managed to expel ISIS terrorists from Shingal in 2015 in a large-scale military operation in which thousands of Peshmerga fighters participated, under the direct supervision of Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani and with air support from the coalition forces, but withdrew from the area after the October 16, 2017 events to avoid a clash with the forces. The Iraqi security forces and the Popular Mobilization Forces launched a massive and unjustified attack on the depopulated areas of Kurdistan, including Shingal, following the independence referendum in the Kurdistan Region in the same year.

Thousands of displaced Yazidis are still afraid to return to their areas due to security concerns and the spread of militias in Shingal, in addition to the devastation and poor services that the region suffers from.

Meanwhile, forces loyal to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and factions of the Popular Mobilization militia are still deployed in Shingal despite the agreement signed by the Kurdistan Regional and Federal governments in October 2020 with the aim of restoring stability and the displaced to Shingal by ending the presence of the PKK and the Popular Mobilization militias and groups associated with them in the city and the deployment of regular federal forces.

Despite the passage of 7 years since the liberation of the afflicted judiciary, the situation there has not developed in all respects, while the search for missing persons and mass graves containing the remains of hundreds of missing Yezidis continues, while buildings and homes are still destroyed and empty of residents who have been living in displacement camps for years.

Reconstruction operations did not start despite the passage of all these years due to political and regional conflicts and security tensions, at a time when more than 3,000 Yazidis are still among the kidnapped and missing, and their fate is still unknown.

The office of Yezidi abductees in the Kurdistan Region has so far managed to free 3,562 abductees, while the fate of 2,600 abductees of both sexes is still unknown.

Source: BasNews

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