ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Syrian refugees continue to arrive in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region by the thousands, but the autonomous enclave has received little aid or attention by the international community to help cope with the massive influx, local authorities complain.
Around 160,000 refugees have crossed into the Kurdistan Region, and 50 to 60 more cross daily, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Just recently, after the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) opened a pontoon bridge at Peshkhabour some 750 Syrians came over the Tigris river crossing before noon Thursday, UNHCR officers reported, with a much larger group of 5,000 to 7,000 following in the afternoon.
Falah Mustafa Bakir, KRG's Minister of Foreign Relations, said the enclave has received very little support compared to countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and others that have accepted the refugees.
“We in Kurdistan have received too little attention from the international community. We have been providing support as the KRG, but also through the people of Kurdistan,” Minister Bakir complained, noting that local charities also had helped.
To date there has been a total of $1.12 in total funding for the Syrian refugee crisis, out of which Iraq has received only $67 million, while Jordan and Lebanon have gotten more than $420 million each, Turkey has been given nearly $94 million and Egypt has received $14.6 million.
Minister Bakir said the KRG has provided millions out of its own pocket, noting that KRG Prime Minister Nechrivan Barzani had donated $20 million to help with the crisis.
“Really this is beyond our capacity as a government, because we have got needs and expectations from our own people here,” Minister Bakir said, complaining that the central government in Baghdad has done nothing to help the KRG.
“We have received nothing from the federal government in Baghdad,” he said.
He added that the KRG was overwhelmed not only by the refugees from Syria, but from Christians, Sunnis and Shiites who had fled the violence in the rest of Iraq for the safety of the Kurdistan Region.
The shortfalls in funding have resulted in massive overcrowding in the Domiz Camp in Duhok, which was supposed to house 15,000 refugees, but has been crammed with 35,000 people in deplorable conditions.
Adil Osman, a Syrian-Kurdish refugee living in an apartment in Erbil crowded with his wife and three children, as well as his brother, said that the only help he has seen during his 10 months as a refugee was some unusable flour and rice. “I received a bag of rice that had worms in it and flour that was black and rotting,” he said.
Recently, the German government pledged to donate an additional 15 million euros for the Syrian Refugees, via UN agencies, with a significant amount of that earmarked for refugees in the Kurdistan Region, according to the KRG.
But Minister Bakir said that would only touch the surface of what is needed.
The KRG and UNHCR are working together on new camps to house around 20,000 refugees, but with the newly-opened bridge and refugees crossing daily the needy are arriving faster than authorities can cope.
