More than 200,000 Yazidis still displaced in Iraq: UN

GENEVA: Eight years on since the Islamic State jihadist group’s massacres of Yazidis, more then 200,000 survivors are still displaced from their homes in Iraq, the United Nations said on Thursday.

The needs of displaced persons living in and outside camps, and returnees remain high said the UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM). After seizing swathes of Iraq in 2014, IS jihadists carried out horrific massacres, including in the northern region of Sinjar where the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi minority -- a monotheistic, esoteric community -- has long been rooted.

A lack of adequate shelter and basic services such as running water. electricity, health care and education is making durable solutions difficult for Yazidis returning home or seeking to do so.

"Families are forced to focus on meeting their most basic needs rather than on meaningfully rebuilding their lives," the IOM said. IS destroyed around 80 percent of public infrastructure and 70 percent of civilian homes in Sinjar city and its surrounding areas, the Geneva-based agency said. IS fighters also destroyed the region’s natural resources and farmland.