BARCELONA, Spain – Refugees from the war in Syria and Iraq include family members of Islamic State (ISIS) fighters, leading to security concerns among authorities, the Kurdistan Region’s representative in Spain said.
“Some of the refugees are families of members of the Islamic State,” said Daban Shadala, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) representative.
“They are sending their families (to the refugee camps) while they continue to fight us,” he said this week in a briefing to the Human Rights Commission of the Basque parliament in the city of Vitoria.
Shadala, whose comments in English were translated through an interpreter, was quoted as saying that weapons had been found in some of the houses where refugees were placed. He did not elaborate.
He said that, according to the last count, there were some 1.8 million refugees from Iraq and Syria in the Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq, and warned that another 500,000 refugees were still expected.
Shadala made an appeal for more humanitarian help, saying UN and international aid had not been enough to cope with the huge numbers of refugees.
“We have 26 refugee camps in the Kurdistan Region. It is very difficult to manage them... We are in a deep crisis but we want to continue being tolerant,” he told the MPs.
According to Sibel Kulaksiz, a senior economist at the World Bank who recently led a mission to the region, the influx of refugees and internally displaced people has seen Kurdistan’s population jump by around 17 per cent, putting severe strain on the local economy and public services.
Commenting on Spanish help to Kurdistan, Shadala noted that Madrid had only contributed 500,000 euros. He added that 300 Spanish troops are to be deployed in southern Iraq to train the Iraqi army for combat against ISIS.
“We will appreciate whatever you can give us before the cold winter comes. We believe this crisis is going to last several years,” he told the commission, saying what the refugees needed most were blankets, sanitation equipment and medicines.
Turning to the controversial aspirations of statehood among Spain’s Basques and Catalans, Shadala said it was unfair for the Spanish government to compare these to the Kurdistan Region’s own desire for independence from Iraq.
“In Spain there is something that it is not understandable: the concept of the Kurdistan Region is compared to the Basque Country and Catalonia and their internal problems,” Shadala was quoted as saying.
“We are here simply asking Spain to support the stability of the region,” he said. “We would be very happy to receive a delegation from the Spanish government to give us political support,” he added, noting there had been no visits to Kurdistan by Spanish officials.
Erbil has been in the frontlines of the war against ISIS since June, visited by top officials from the US and several European nations.
Maribel Vaquero, head of the Human Rights Commission in the Basque parliament, told Rudaw that Shadala’s briefing had moved many MPs.
“The members of the commission were containing their tears when Mr. Shadala was speaking,” she said.
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