Daesh terrorists destroyed 116 villages in Iraq's Kirkuk province over a three-year period, its governor said late Tuesday.

The terror group destroyed the villages between 2014-2017, Governor Rakan Saed told Anadolu Agency.

Saed said thousands of villagers are still living in tents near the Kirkuk city center.

He added that Kirkuk's south was the area that Daesh terrorists harmed the most in all of Iraq.

Many villages do not have electricity, water, sewage systems, education or health services, Saed said.

"It seems impossible for residents to return before the infrastructure that was totally destroyed is reconstructed. For reconstruction, there is definitely a need of the state's support."

Last October, Iraqi forces captured Kirkuk's Hawija district, roughly 45 kilometers west of Kirkuk city, which had been considered one of the terrorist group's last strongholds in northern Iraq.

In recent months, Daesh has suffered a string of major defeats in both Iraq and Syria after overrunning vast swathes of territory in both countries in mid-2014.