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Once Ravaged by ISIS, Iraq's Sinjar Caught in New Tug-of-War

The ISIS group overran Sinjar in 2014 and pursued a brutal, months-long campaign of massacres, enslavement, and rape against Yazidis | AFP
The ISIS group overran Sinjar in 2014 and pursued a brutal, months-long campaign of massacres, enslavement, and rape against Yazidis | AFP
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Once Ravaged by ISIS, Iraq's Sinjar Caught in New Tug-of-War

The ISIS group overran Sinjar in 2014 and pursued a brutal, months-long campaign of massacres, enslavement, and rape against Yazidis | AFP
The ISIS group overran Sinjar in 2014 and pursued a brutal, months-long campaign of massacres, enslavement, and rape against Yazidis | AFP

Nearly six years since Iraq's Sinjar region was recaptured from militants, a tangled web of geopolitical tensions risks sparking a new conflict that could prolong the dire situation of minority Yazidis.

The ISIS group overran Sinjar in 2014 and pursued a brutal, months-long campaign of massacres, enslavement, and rape against Yazidis in what the UN has said could amount to genocide.

Sinjar is wedged between Turkey to the north and Syria to the west, making it a highly strategic zone long coveted by both the central government in Baghdad and autonomous Kurdish authorities of the north.

The tensions have terrified the few Yazidis who returned to their ruined towns, only to face the specter of a new displacement.

"We're living in the middle of so many different threats," said one of them, 46-year-old Faisal Saleh.

"Sinjar's people are terrified that clashes will break out," he told AFP as he drove from his hometown in Sinjar into the adjacent Kurdish region to rent an apartment in case he needed to flee an escalation.

Sinjar was retaken from ISIS in 2015 by fighters from the autonomous Kurdistan region's Peshmerga and from Syrian Kurdish units, backed by the US-led coalition.

Iran-backed units from within the Iraqi Hashed al-Shaabi network of militias also took surrounding territory.

This fractious patchwork of forces delayed Sinjar's revival: the federal government had barely any presence there and international aid groups were wary of investing.

In an effort to kick-start reconstruction and get displaced Yazidis home, the Sinjar Agreement reached in October stipulated that the only arms in the area should be those of the federal government.

But it has yet to be implemented.

- 'Explosion at any time' -

"The reality on the ground is stronger than these agreements. No one in Sinjar wants to let go of the influence they've earned there," said Yassin Tah, an analyst based in the region.

"Sinjar today is a zone that brings together all the conflicting agendas and rival parties of the region.

"It's in a very complicated and tense situation -- and that could lead to an explosion at any time," he told AFP.

On the one hand, the autonomous Kurdish regional government (KRG) claims Sinjar is within its zone of control.

The KRG is irked by the presence of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a rival faction operating in north Iraq for decades and whose Syrian branch helped fight ISIS in Sinjar.

The PKK's role also infuriates Ankara, which calls it a "terrorist" group for its decades-long insurgency in Turkey and has crossed into Iraq to bomb the PKK.

"Turkey is watching Sinjar -- and it's seeing the PKK grow more powerful there," said Tah, the analyst.

In January, Ankara upped the ante, bombing a mountainous region close to Sinjar and hinting it could invade.

"We may come there overnight, all of a sudden," warned President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan's veiled threat, in turn, gave an excuse to pro-Iran Hashed factions to insist on staying in Sinjar.

The Hashed swiftly announced sending new fighters to Sinjar while one of its hardline members, Asaib Ahl al-Haq said it would "block any aggressive behavior" by Turkey.

- 'Sinjar is suffering' -

Tah said the quick mobilization was an effort to defend the Hashed's crucial smuggling route between Iraq and Syria, which crosses through Sinjar.

A top Iraqi military official in Nineveh province, where Sinjar is located, even admitted the rivalries, saying Turkey, armed groups, and rival Kurds were all trying to "secure their interests via Sinjar".

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi has rushed to defuse the tensions, with a top official in his office telling AFP there was ongoing contact with Turkey to try to hold off an incursion.

If conflict does erupt in Sinjar, Kadhemi would have a lot to lose, wrote Nussaibah Younis, a visiting fellow at the European Council for Foreign Relations.

"It would undermine the political victory that the Sinjar Agreement afforded to Kadhemi (and) burnish the image of the (Hashed) and other militia groups as defenders of Iraq at the central government's expense," Younis said.

It would also "hamper the return of vulnerable displaced Yazidis to Sinjar," she wrote.

Ali Abbas, spokesman for Iraq's migration ministry, told AFP there are 90,000 families from Sinjar who remain displaced, most of them in the KRG-run region.

Among them is Mahma Khalil, the mayor of Sinjar.

"Sinjar is suffering. We need extraordinary efforts to help stabilize it," he told AFP by phone from Duhok, an adjacent area where most of Sinjar's displaced now live.

"You have to find a solution to the stability of Sinjar. You have to learn the lesson of the past."

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Arab World

Sudan Civil War Overwhelms Border Town in Neighbor Chad as Refugees Find Little Help

A Sudanese army soldier walks toward a truck-mounted gun left behind by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Salha, south of Omdurman, a day after recapturing it from the RSF, on May 21, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
A Sudanese army soldier walks toward a truck-mounted gun left behind by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Salha, south of Omdurman, a day after recapturing it from the RSF, on May 21, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
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Sudan Civil War Overwhelms Border Town in Neighbor Chad as Refugees Find Little Help

A Sudanese army soldier walks toward a truck-mounted gun left behind by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Salha, south of Omdurman, a day after recapturing it from the RSF, on May 21, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
A Sudanese army soldier walks toward a truck-mounted gun left behind by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Salha, south of Omdurman, a day after recapturing it from the RSF, on May 21, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)

Fatima Omas Abdullah wakes up every morning with aches and pains from sleeping on bare ground for almost two years. She did not expect Sudan's civil war to displace her for so long into neighboring Chad.

“There is nothing here,” she said, crying and shaking the straw door of her makeshift home. Since April 2023, she has been in the Adre transit camp a few hundred meters from the Sudanese border, along with almost a quarter-million others fleeing the fighting, The Associated Press said.

Now the US- backed aid system that kept hundreds of thousands like Abdullah alive on the edge of one of the world’s most devastating wars is fraying. Under the Trump administration, key foreign aid has been slashed and funding withdrawn from United Nations programs that feed, treat and shelter refugees.

In 2024, the US contributed $39.3 million to the emergency response in Chad. So far this year, it has contributed about $6.8 million, the UN says. Overall, only 13% of the requested money to support refugees in Chad this year has come in from all donors, according to UN data.

In Adre, humanitarian services were already limited as refugees are meant to move to more established camps deeper inside Chad.

Many Sudanese, however, choose to stay. Some are heartened by the military’s recent successes against rival paramilitary forces in the capital, Khartoum. They have swelled the population of this remote, arid community that was never meant to hold so many. Prices have shot up. Competition over water is growing.

Adre isn’t alone. As the fighting inside Sudan’s remote Darfur region shifts, the stream of refugees has created a new, more isolated transit camp called Tine. Since late April, 46,000 people have arrived.

With the aid cuts, there is even less to offer them there.

235,000 Sudanese in a border town Adre has become a fragile frontline for an estimated 235,000 Sudanese. They are among the 1.2 million who have fled into eastern Chad.

Before the civil war, Adre was a town of about 40,000. As Sudanese began to arrive, sympathetic residents with longtime cross-border ties offered them land.

Now there is a sea of markets and shelters, along with signs of Sudanese intending to stay. Some refugees are constructing multi-story buildings.

Sudanese-run businesses form one of Adre’s largest markets. Locals and refugees barter in Sudanese pounds for everything from produce to watches.

“There is respect between the communities,” said resident Asadiq Hamid Abdullah, who runs a donkey cart. “But everyone is complaining that the food is more expensive.”

Chad is one of the world’s poorest countries, with almost 50% of the population living below the poverty line.

Locals say the price of water has quadrupled since the start of Sudan’s civil war as demand rises. Sudanese women told The Associated Press that fights had broken out at the few water pumps for them, installed by the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders.

Even food aid could run out shortly. The UN World Food Program says funding to support Sudanese refugees in Adre is guaranteed only until July, as the US aid cuts force a 30% reduction in staff worldwide. The UN refugee agency has seen 30% of its funding cut for this area, eastern Chad.

Samia Ahmed, who cradled her 3-year-old and was pregnant with her second child, said she has found work cleaning and doing laundry because the WFP rations don’t last the month.

“I see a gloomy future,” she said.

Sudanese try to fill aid gaps Sudanese are trying to fill gaps in aid, running private schools and their own humanitarian area with a health clinic and women’s center.

Local and UN authorities, however, are increasing the pressure on them to leave Adre. There are too many people here, they say.

“A vast city,” said Hamit Hadjer Abdullai with Chad’s National Commission for the Reception and Reintegration of Refugees.

He said crime was increasing. Police warn of the Colombians, a Sudanese gang. Locals said it operates with impunity, though Abdullai claimed that seven leaders have been jailed.

“People must move,” said Benoit Kayembe Mukendi, the UN refugee agency’s local representative. “For security reasons and for their protection.”

As the Chadian population begins to demand their land back, Mukendi warned of a bigger security issue ahead.

But most Sudanese won’t go. The AP spoke to dozens who said they had been relocated to camps and returned to Adre to be closer to their homeland and the transit camp's economic opportunities.

There are risks. Zohal Abdullah Hamad was relocated but returned to run a coffee stand. One day, a nearby argument escalated and gunfire broke out. Hamad was shot in the gut.

“I became cold. I was immobile,” she said, crying as she recalled the pain. She said she has closed her business.

The latest Sudanese arrivals to Adre have no chance to establish themselves. On the order of local authorities, they are moved immediately to other camps. The UN said it is transporting 2,000 of them a day.

In Tine, arriving Sudanese find nothing The new and rapidly growing camp of Tine, around 180 kilometers (111 miles) north of Adre, has seen 46,000 refugees arrive since late April from Northern Darfur.

Their sheer numbers caused a UN refugee representative to gasp.

Thousands jostle for meager portions of food distributed by community kitchens. They sleep on the ground in the open desert, shaded by branches and strips of fabric. They bring witness accounts of attacks in Zamzam and El-Fasher: rape, robbery, relatives shot before their eyes.

With the US aid cuts, the UN and partners cannot respond as before, when people began to pour into Adre after the start of the war, UN representative Jean Paul Habamungu Samvura said.

“If we have another Adre here ... it will be a nightmare.”