April 18, 2017•Update: April 19, 2017
ERBIL, Iraq
Fifty senior Ezidi PKK members -- both military and political -- have recently left the terrorist group in Iraq’s Sinjar district, according to a Kurdish Peshmerga commander.
“The PKK’s presence in Sinjar is being eroded with each passing day,” Qasim Dirbo, a Peshmerga commander in Sinjar, said in a statement carried by the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
According to Dirbo, senior Ezidi group members abruptly laid down their weapons and returned to their homes.
He went on to assert that he was in contact with a number of other Ezidi PKK members who hoped to leave the terrorist group.
Earlier this month, some 500 Ezidi members abruptly left the PKK and joined Peshmerga forces loyal to northern Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government.
In late 2015, Peshmerga forces captured Sinjar -- located near Mosul -- from the Daesh terrorist group, which had taken control of the district the previous year.
Since 2014, however, the PKK has maintained a presence in Sinjar on the pretext of fighting Daesh militants.
Ezidis are a religious group concentrated largely near Mosul and Iraq’s Sinjar Mountain region. Smaller Ezidi communities can also be found in Turkey, Syria, Iran, Georgia and Armenia.
*Reporting by Idris Okuducu; Writing by Mahmoud Barakat
