The Sinjar Mountains in the northwest of Iraq extends over a length of about 100 km, it is 15 km wide and reaches an altitude of 1463 m. Due to its altitude and proximity to Syria, this mountain range has a high strategic and military importance.
At present, the Sinjar region is controlled by a number of militias, which are partially enemies among each other and who set up checkpoints at numerous locations.
In Sinjar there are the Iran–funded Hashd al–Shabi militia, the PKK (Kurdistan Worker Party), the YPG militia, the YBS (Sinjar Resistance Units – a Yazidi militia), the HPE (Ezidkhan Defense Units – a Yazidi militia) and the Iraqi army.
In addition, there is a political power struggle in regard of the Sinjar region between the central government in Baghdad and the regional government of the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan in Erbil, due to the strategic importance of this area and both of them raise a claim on Sinjar.
The people most affected by the various militias and the domestic Iraqi power struggle are the Yazidis, because neither their security situation improves nor the destroyed villages are rebuilt, which makes a return to Sinjar impossible for most of the Yazidis.
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