Yazidi community uprooted by IS onslaught struggles to find stable homes

Rihan Ismail returns to Yazidi community in Sinjar, facing challenges of rebuilding and uncertain future after IS attack.

When Rihan Ismail returned to her family’s home in the heartland of her Yazidi community, she was sure she was coming back for good.

She had yearned for that moment throughout long years of captivity.

Islamic State (IS) militants had abducted then-adolescent Ms. Ismail as they rampaged through Iraq’s Sinjar district, killing and enslaving thousands from the Yazidi religious minority.

As they moved her from Iraq to Syria, she clung to what home meant to her: a childhood filled with laughter and a community so tight-knit the neighbour’s house was like your own. After her captors took her to Turkiye, she finally managed to get ahold of a phone, contact her family and plan a rescue.

“How could I leave again?” Ms. Ismail, 24, said last year, soon after returning to her village, Hardan. The house where she lives with her brother’s family is one of the few still standing in the village. A nearby school houses displaced families.

Her father and younger sister are still missing. In a local cemetery, three of her brothers are buried along with 13 other men and boys killed by IS.

No future