ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - More than 260 families returned to the town of Jalawla in Diyala Province in Iraq's north on Monday ahead of hundreds more who are set to return home there next week, a Kurdish official in the town, told Rudaw. "Today, 263 families returned to their homes in Jalawla and on Thursday another 336 families will return," said Yaaqub Yusif Ali, a top administrative official in Jalawla. "Jalawla consists of six neighborhoods and so far three have been reconstructed including Azadi, Sawz and Loka, and next week many other displaced families will return to the other three neighborhoods," he went on to explain. "With the return of 236 families to Jalawla, the total number of the returnees is around 4000 families to the town," read an Iraqi Migration Ministry statement. The families were allowed to return home after their houses, streets and roads were declared safe by bomb disposal engineers. Islamic State (ISIS) militants had rigged many homes and public places with explosives during their brief control of the town. The town in northern Diyala was taken by ISIS militants in August last year, Kurdish forces recaptured it three months later. In late 2015 the first 155 families reportedly returned to Jalawla after it was liberated by Kurdish Peshmerga forces. The town is part of the so-called “disputed territories” which are claimed both by the central government in Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in the north.
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