ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Erbil provincial authorities suggested that an estimated 200,000 to 900,000 refugees are expected to flee war zone areas in Iraq, including recently embattled Fallujah and Mosul. But so far there has been no preparation to host newly Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) due to lack of cooperation between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government.
"We suggest that 200,000 to 900,000 IDPs will flee to Erbil, and two places have been designated to take in refugees once the battle for Mosul has resumed," Tahir Abdullah deputy governor of Erbil told Rudaw on the TV program Niwroj.
Iraqi troops backed by Shiite militia and coalition air support launched a major offensive on Sunday to wrest control of Fallujah from the Islamic State (ISIS) two years after the group captured the Sunni city.
The Kurdish-majority Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition group announced on Tuesday that it was launching an offensive against ISIS in Raqqa.
Abdullah also talked about preparation for a possible influx of refugees to southern Kurdistan, or Kurdistan Region, with the beginning of massive military operations against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Raqqa in Syria and Fallujah in Iraq and he criticized the Iraqi government because they have not launched serious negotiations with the KRG.
"The Iraqi government has not begun serious cooperation with the KRG, and even a budget of $32 million Baghdad itself allocated to help refugee camps in Erbil in 2014, only a sum of $15 million was spent to build a camp, and the rest has not been spent yet," Abdulla explained.
The Iraqi Immigration Ministry had allocated $32 million to Erbil province for refugee camps but transferred just $15 million, while Sulaimani province received the full $20 million of the budget it was allocated for refugee camps. "I hope there were no political factors behind this," said Abdullah.
The Kurdistan Regional Government claims that internally displaced persons (IDPs) now make up 35 percent of the current population of the Kurdistan Region.
“According to data of September 2015, some 3.2 million people have internally been displaced in Iraq, and the Kurdistan region has adopted the majority of that figure, in the sense that they have made up 35 percent of the recent population of the region,” Aram Sheikh Mohammed, the Iraqi parliament deputy speaker had told Rudaw.
The Kurdish region already hosts some 250,000 refugees from Syria and 2 million Iraqi IDPs, mostly from Anbar and Mosul provinces who were forced to flee their homes when ISIS seized swathes of Iraq and Syria and began persecuting Shiites and religious minority groups.
Of this number Abdulla revealed that "more than 500,000 refugees have been based in Erbil province."
