After the terror of ISIS, returning home is still a distant prospect for thousands of Yazidis. Now they have become pawns as Baghdad and Erbil bicker over their homeland of Sinjar.
Yazidis
Yazidis join Shiite militias as they flush out ISIL militants from the village of Kocho in southern Sinjar.
The plight of the Yazidis brought the United States back into the Iraq War when Obama moved to save them on Mount Sinjar. But three years on, they’ve got little hope of going home.
The Yazidis have been able to return to their most holy place, but US jets hover overhead and IS militants lurk around the corner.
Mass graves and the survivors of massacres tell of the horrors inflicted on the Yazidi minority by ISIS.
Thousands of Yazidi women and children were kidnapped by ISIS. A group of smugglers are taking great risks to get them back.
For Iraq’s half a million Yazidis, ISIL’s lightning advance towards Sinjar has shattered their belief in a peaceful coexistence with the Sunni Arabs that make up the majority of Nineveh province.