At the foot of a short mountain range in northern Iraq lies the city-district of Shingal, long home to the Yazidi people, an often-targeted ethnic minority. In 2014, the Islamic State seized Shingal, slaughtering 5,000 Yazidis, enslaving many of the women, and sending 60,000 fleeing for their lives onto nearby Mount Sinjar. Many remain in a tent-city limbo, carving an existence from the jagged mountain terrain as the conflict trudges on. In 2018, military tensions there mount between guerrilla fighters, Turkey, and Iraq, as the city remains in ruins—further delaying the return of Mount Sinjar’s forgotten Yazidi to their historic home.
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Giacomo Sini
Sinjar outside
A view Shingal’s center from the roof of a partially destroyed house, used since early 2017 as a front-line position for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party [PKK], a guerrilla resistance group battling the Islamic State. In March 2018, Turkey promised a military intervention unless the PKK vacated the area.
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Giacomo Sini
Sinjar poppies
A Sinjar resistance unit commander and friends take selfies among the blooming poppies on the frontline against the Islamic State on the outskirts of Shingal.
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GIACOMO SINI
Sinjar school
A self-managed school in the Mount Sinjar tent city. Schools are driven by local councils with the help of voluntary teachers.
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Giacomi Sini
Shingal
A view of Shingal’s center from the roof of a partially destroyed house, used since early 2017 as a front-line position for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a guerrilla resistance group battling the Islamic State. The city landscape remains desolate, with much of the historic district reduced to rubble.
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Giacomi Sini
Fighter
A Sinjar resistance unit fighter in his position on the former Shingali southwestern frontline against the Islamic State. These are the Yazidis’ only militias, part of a coalition of groups inspired by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
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Giacomo Sini
Family
Agid, who gave only his last name, and his family are among the Yazidis who, despite the tensions in the area and the destruction within Shingal, decided to return home in 2017. Their neighborhood is now a heap of rubble, and they rely on a generator for electricity.
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Giacomo Sini
Agid
Agid in the family’s home. For nearly a year during the Islamic State’s occupation of Shingal, the house was the Islamic State headquarters in the region. After the 2014 massacre, part of Agid’s family managed to reach Germany, with some going on to the United States.