AMEDI, Kurdistan Region - Months after Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) ceased fire, Tahir Iskandar returned to his damaged house in Duhok province's border village of Mije, a year after displacement.
Iskandar's house has sustained significant damage amid the PKK-Turkey crossfire. Despite spending around $40,000 on construction, he now has to rebuild it from scratch, yet he feels thrilled to have been able to return and for stability to have restored to their region.
"Imagine how much money is needed for someone to build a house here - it is not like in the city, and nothing is left- no household items is left, no house is left, no vineyards is left, no orchards is left, nothing is left at all," Iskandar sighed.
PKK announced a unilateral ceasefire earlier this year and later, responding to a call from its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, it decided to dissolve itself and lay down arms. Some members of the group burned their weapons in a symbolic ceremony in Sulaimani. A parliamentary commission has been formed in the Turkish parliament to set a legal path for the process.
Local authorities have formed a committee to assess the scale of damage for potential compensations.
"Assessments have been done for all sides - for the mosque, for the school, for the health center, for the public electricity network," Azad Hamzo, chieftain of Mije village, told Rudaw.
It remains unclear whether security stabilizes once and for all in Duhok's border villages, as Ankara and PKK have yet to reach an agreement to end hostilities, despite notable progress
Decades of conflict between the PKK and Ankara had discouraged villagers from developing their villages.
The remnants of the devastating war are still visible in some villages.
Ongoing peace talks between Ankara and the PKK aim to end a conflict that has claimed over 40,000 lives.