Thousands of Yezidis have chosen to remain camped out atop Mount Shingal almost five years since Islamic State (ISIS) militants forced them to flee their ancestral homeland.
Exposed to the elements in tents and shanty houses, those living here still fear ISIS reprisals if they return to their villages, where homes remain in ruins, jobs and basic services are few, and landmines litter the landscape.
Although life on the mountain is tough, many prefer its relative safety to the plains of Shingal, where rival militias compete for supremacy and ISIS threatens resurgence.
“We choose to live here on the mountain because it’s safer than the larger villages,” said Rasho Ismail Iqchoo from Til Azir village, referring to Shingal City and Sinune.
“Even when ISIS was in Shingal, we were safe here on the mountain.”
Iqchoo, 50, fled Til Azir when ISIS first attacked Shingal in August 2014. He and his family of 14 have now been living at the top of the mountain for nearly five years.
“The first two months we lived here without tents until finally the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) brought some tents and food,” he said.
A few months later, local and international organizations donated larger tents and offered assistance to the families who decided to stay in Sardashti.
Sardashti is an area on top of Mount Shingal, 25 kilometers from Shingal City. Most of the 2,300 families living here have been fortunate enough to receive tents donated by various organizations.
However, this assistance has almost come to an end and many families have cobbled together homes out of any scrap materials salvaged from ruined houses in other villages.
Sardashti is more or less a collection of shanty towns.
The mountain is inhospitable. Bitterly cold and rainy winters with temperatures barely reaching above freezing are followed by scorching summers where temperatures can reach up to 45C (113F).
This is made worse by limited humanitarian aid and a shortage of paid work.
“We can’t live here forever because the life is too difficult and harsh,” Iqchoo said. “We have no work. We want to return to our village but it’s too dangerous.”
He and other camp residents are calling on the international community to provide security and a strong border for Yezidis to protect them from the numerous militias which patrol the area.
Amr Ismail, another Sardashti resident from Til Azir, is a trained nurse and pharmacist who previously volunteered with Medecins Sans Frontieres.
“When we first came here in 2014, after four months we received donations of medicine from organizations,” Ismail said. “In that time, ISIS was still surrounding the mountain. I was voluntarily distributing the medicine to people who needed it.”
When these organizations left and donations dried up, Ismail opened his own pharmacy in his district.
The 30-year-old now purchases medication and supplies from Snune or has them delivered from Mosul. This allows him to continue providing basic medical care and medication to residents for a small fee in order to support his family.
“If a person’s illness or injury is serious, I refer them to a hospital in either Shinagl City or Snune,” he said.
To further supplement his income to feed his family, Ismail also works one week each month as a nurse at the Shingal City hospital.
Most people want to return home, he says, but this is impossible due to destroyed infrastructure, no jobs or availability of food and water, along with security concerns.
The camps urgently need schools and teachers to provide education, and existing health facilities do not meet the needs of the sick and injured, he said.
Security remains a pressing concern.
“We are safer here [on the mountain] but not 100 percent, as there are many different military groups coming here,” said Ismail.
“For the most part we feel that the military groups won’t protect us, so we are responsible for protecting ourselves.”
The 2,300 families residing in Sardashti are divided into 42 different camps or districts, each led by a local mukhtar, or district head.
One such mukhtar, Khadir Barkat Hassan, 45, from Til Azir, says there are 159 families living in his camp.
Sixteen are from the north side of the mountain near Snune village, while the rest are from Til Azir or Gir Zerik – the first Shingali village brutally attacked by ISIS in 2014.
“For a long time we are living in the tents. We have no life here. It’s very difficult, as you can see,” he said. “The jobs are zero.”
One organization came in 2017 to dig a well for the residents, he says, but it is too far away for those without a means of transport.
“Before that, my children would bring water from the springs at the bottom of the mountain, carrying it in buckets back to our home,” he explained. “Other families in this sector have no access to well water and must bring water from the springs.”
Although public electricity is available, but there isn’t enough to go around, he explains.
During the summer months, each district receives maybe four or five hours of electricity. In the winter months this can fall to just two hours per day, forcing residents to travel to Snune to get oil for their heaters.
“We had many things before ISIS came, but they took everything from us,” Hassan said. “Sometimes we don’t even have one piece of bread to eat.”
“We ask the international community to help the Yezidis restore our villages so that we can return home,” he added.
Hassan also said the international community should provide military training so the security of Sardashti and Shingal can be completely controlled by Yezidi forces.
“If the international community can’t train Yezidi forces to protect us, we want to belong to Kurdistan,” Hassan said. “We trust the Kurdish government more than the Iraqi government.”
“We must tell the truth. ISIS took Mosul before they came to Shingal so the [Kurdish] Peshmerga had no way to protect us and had no choice but to leave,” he said. “But the Iraqi government also ran away and took guns and trucks when they went, even those with the Nineveh governorate.”
“Kurdistan helped the Yezidis more than the Iraqi government.
After ISIS took Shingal and many Yezidis came to the mountain, most of them went to Kurdistan and the government helped them by giving them houses, making camps for them and gave them food. That is why I say Kurdistan helped the Yezidi people more than the Iraqi government,” he added.
Until the security situation improves, it is safer for the Yezidis to stay on Mount Shingal, Hassan insists.
“The mountain is not like the other place. This mountain saved our lives. That’s why we feel safer here.”
By A.C. Robinson
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