Some 27 Yazidi organizations have launched an urgent appeal to Iraq’s central government for $1.5 billion in financial assistance to help rebuild private housing and public infrastructure in their ancestral homeland Sinjar, also known as Shingal, that was decimated by the Islamic State when it embarked on its killing spree there in 2014, killing thousands of members of the ancient ethno-religious sect and abducting their women and children. The massacres are labeled a genocide by the United Nations and a growing number of governments and institutions worldwide.
In the statement, seen exclusively by Al-Monitor ahead of its release later today, the groups decried the paucity of resources allocated to Sinjar in the budget approved by Iraq’s parliament, with a mere $38 million reserved for its rehabilitation from an annual $153 billion overall.
Recalling that the Iraqi prime minister’s office had in the past allocated 500 billion Iraqi dinars ($380 million) for Sinjar, it noted, "The budget was filibustered by some political parties and cut down to 10 percent of its original allocation."
It continued, “Sinjar and other areas inhabited mostly by minorities have received disproportionately low funding over the past nine years and our communities are outraged by the inequality of this budget allocation, considering the severe level of destruction in Sinjar and other areas.” The signatories are calling for the federal government to allocate 1% of the 2023 budget — $1.5 billion — to a specialized fund for the reconstruction of Sinjar.
