Nearly a decade after Islamic State forces seized the Sinjar region of northern Iraq, many residents have not returned because villages remain damaged and increasingly difficult to live in. In Faka, only about 20 of the roughly 150 families who lived there before August 2014 have come back.
The villages face intertwined problems: damaged homes, few jobs, unreliable electricity, unexploded ordnance in parts of the countryside and a worsening shortage of water. Farming, the main source of rural income, is becoming less dependable as rainfall grows erratic and summers become hotter and longer.
What has happened in Sinjar’s villages
Islamic State’s August 2014 offensive forced residents to flee as frontlines advanced across north-western Iraq. The United Nations has recognised the assault against the Yazidi community as a genocide; thousands were killed and more than 6,000 people, mostly women and children, were abducted.
Faka and nearby Qubq avoided the mass killings that devastated other villages, but coalition airstrikes and ground fighting destroyed much of the area. In Tal Jado’o, barely 50 people remain from a pre-war population of more than 200. Al-Sajea, which once had 37 families, is now uninhabited, with all 24 surviving houses severely damaged.
Why water has become the central obstacle
Temperatures in Sinjar have approached 50C this summer, while prolonged drought is reducing agricultural production. In Tal Jado’o, groundwater that could once be reached at about 10 metres now requires drilling to around 25 metres, making farming more expensive.
The UN ranks Iraq as the world’s fifth most vulnerable country to declining water and food availability and extreme heat. Iraqi authorities project that the average annual temperature will rise by 2.5C by 2050, with 24 additional days each year crossing extreme-heat thresholds. Iraq’s UN special representative has warned that, if current trends continue, the country could meet only 15% of its water needs by 2035.
The consequences for families and younger residents
Residents describe return as impossible without housing, work and basic services. Roads in Tal Jado’o remain mostly dirt tracks and electricity is intermittent. In Al-Sajea, families have moved to Tal Afar, while one farmer stays in a caravan during the agricultural season to work fields near his abandoned home.
Climate pressures are also accelerating movement away from rural areas. The International Organization for Migration recorded more than 186,000 people displaced by climate-related factors across Iraq as of September 2025. Young people often leave for construction work in Mosul or Erbil, where wages are more reliable than farming; village schools are also seeing fewer pupils.
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