One year later, struggle continues for Yazidis
Displacement has left Iraq’s Yazidis with very little, driving some to seek to leave the country and others to despair.
DAHUK, Iraq — Izzat Abbas, along with a group of men and children, took refuge in the shade by a prefabricated cabin in a refugee camp for displaced Yazidis. They chat and occasionally laugh while they try to keep their spirits up. But their sunburned faces show more exhaustion than content. The temperature is 47 degrees Celsius (116.6 Fahrenheit) and there is no electricity, which causes the camp residents to flee cabins they described as being as hot as "ovens."
"It's just unbearable," Abbas, 40, said of the excessive heat. “There is little electricity. We get it for three hours and then no electricity for the next three hours. We are given water [by the government] only one hour per day."
Ismael Mohammed, the deputy governor of Dahuk who is in charge of matters involving the refugees and internally displaced persons, told Al-Monitor that nearly 450,000 Yazidis have been scattered around 14 camps in Dahuk province since Aug. 3, 2014, when they were uprooted by the Islamic State (IS) from their historical homeland in Sinjar in western Ninevah province. He said, “Many have also settled in the cities or outside Dahuk.”
Those in the Rwanga camp, halfway between the cities of Dahuk and Zakho close to the border with Turkey, are perhaps among the luckiest. They are living in prefabricated cabins, while the majority of the other camps are sprawling tent cities with little protection against the forces of nature.
