Yazidi community leaders revealed plans for an internationally funded new village to be built in the Sinjar region in northern Iraq, providing homes for those forcibly displaced by the 2014 massacre.
A decade after Islamic State militants devastated the Yazidi’s village, survivors of Kocho in Iraq’s Sinjar region are preparing to return, AP News reported.
On August 15, 2014, Islamic State (IS) militants brutally attacked Kocho, killing hundreds of Yazidis and enslaving thousands more across the Sinjar region.
Sunni extremists targeted the Yazidis, a small and insular religious minority, viewing them as heretics.
The Kocho massacre stands as one of the most horrific examples of IS’s crimes against the Yazidi community.
According to a report by the “Middle East Center” at the London School of Economics, out of 1,470 people in Kocho at the time of the attack, 368 were killed, 1,027 were abducted, and only 75 managed to escape.
Now, all necessary permits for the construction of the new village have been finalized, with construction set for September 5, announced Naif Jaso, a prominent Yazidi leader.
The “New Kocho” will be located near the village of Tel Qassab, about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) north of the original Kocho, which remains largely in ruins.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM), the UN Development Program, and “Nadia’s Initiative,” a nonprofit founded by Yazidi survivor and politician Nadia Murad, are collaborating to build the new village.
The initiative aims to provide essential housing and infrastructure to encourage the displaced Yazidis to return to their ancestral homeland.
The return of the Yazidis is complex, as few have chosen to go back to their former homes. Sinjar’s situation remains dire, with destroyed infrastructure, limited rebuilding funds, and various armed groups vying for control of the area.
Although IS was defeated in Iraq in 2017, only 43% of the over 300,000 people displaced from Sinjar have returned as of April this year, according to IOM data.
Yazidi Leader Jaso reported that 133 displaced families have expressed their willingness to settle in the New Kocho Village, which will include parks, marketplaces, a health facility, a psychiatric support center, recreational spaces, and homes.
Nadia Initiative’s spokesperson, Salah Qasim, stated that each house will be constructed based on the size and needs of each family.
Alyas Salih Qasim, one of the few male survivors from Kocho, plans to return once the new village is ready.
He has been living in a displacement camp in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region and hopes to make the New Kocho his permanent home.
“I would love to return to my original house,” Qasim said, though he remains skeptical about others returning. Many Yazidis have migrated and started new lives elsewhere.
He noted, “It’s difficult to return to an empty village, and it’s better if we settle in the New Kocho once they finish constructing it.”
Earlier this year, the Iraqi government ordered the closure of displacement camps in the Kurdish region that house thousands of Yazidis by July 30.
Authorities offered payments of 4 million dinars (about $3,000) to those who leave but later postponed the order.
Fatima Ismael, another survivor of the Kocho massacre who has lived in the same camp as Qasim for nine years, also hopes to settle in the new village.
She said the old village of Kocho holds too many painful memories.
The remains of her husband and two of her sons were found in mass graves, while three other sons are still missing, with empty graves awaiting them at the local cemetery.
“I can never return home because I can’t look at the empty rooms,” Ismael said, despite missing the old village community. She poised: “How can I live with that?”
Survivors continue to live in fear of IS, and one reason for situating the new Kocho away from the old village is to be closer to the mountains where many Yazidis took refuge during the militants’ attack. Although defeated, IS militants still pose a threat, capable of staging surprise attacks from underground.
Commemorations and ceremonies, like the one held on Thursday, often trigger traumatic memories.
“It feels like the first day every time there’s a ceremony or event to remember these days,” Qasim remarked.
“Whatever they do for us, or how hard they try, what we saw is unbearably terrible and impossible to forget.”