Nearly five years after the Government of Iraq (GoI) declared victory
over the Islamic State (IS) group in December 2017, more than one
million people remain internally displaced throughout the country.
The estimated 1.18 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) have
significant humanitarian needs related to shelter and protection and
face specific barriers to achieving durable solutions. A variety of factors
inhibit the ability of IDPs to return to their areas of origin. Damaged
infrastructure, minimal employment opportunities and few services,
combined with social tensions, all prevent displacement-affected
communities from returning.

This is particularly acute in Sinjar, a demographically-mixed district
in western Ninewa governorate that was one of the areas most
devastated by IS occupation through both widespread infrastructure
destruction and the group’s campaign against the Yezidis, Iraq’s second
largest religious minority group. 80 percent of public infrastructure and 70 percent of civilian homes in Sinjar were destroyed. IS killed and abducted thousands of Yezidis and hundreds of thousands were displaced during the occupation and subsequent military offensives.

In late 2021, NRC undertook household surveys and key informant
interviews (KIIs) to assess how housing, land and property (HLP) has influenced returns to Sinjar across different ethnic and religious groups and to understand how HLP factors into the achievement of durable solutions for displacement affected communities in Iraq.