Waves of Anbar refugees force Baghdad to build new camps

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The central Iraqi government is building six refugee camps to shelter new arrivals fleeing their homes due the ongoing military campaign by Iraqi forces and US-led coalition forces to clear Anbar province of Islamic State militants, a Baghdad official told Rudaw.

“The Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration in cooperation with an immigration committee backed by local and foreign NGOs is making six new camps for the thousands of displaced people who are coming to Baghdad from Anbar province,” Mohammed Tamimi, a spokesman for Deputy Prime Minister Salih Motlaq, told Rudaw on Sunday.

A military campaign was launched April 8 to liberate Anbar province from ISIS militias in tandem with airstrikes by the US-led coalition.

“The camps are built in areas including Abu Ghraib, Razwania, Jamia, Sadr Yousefia, Dora and areas close to Bezebz Bridge in Baghdad,” Tamimi added.

Motlaq, who is also the head of Iraq’s High Commission for Refugees, told officials to obtain all the necessary materials inside the camps, according to Tamimi.

An Iraqi official quoted on April16 by The Associated Press said that more than 2,000 families have fled from their homes in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, some 115 kilometers from Baghdad.

According to Fazel Ghazvi, a member of the Iraqi Human Rights Commission, more than 25,000 displaced people from Anbar province have been moving to other Iraqi cities and towns. The United Nations, however, has said its estimate of displaced Anbar residents is much higher: 90,000 individuals.

High-ranking UN official Volker Türk warned Thursday during a visit to Erbil that Iraq collectively now has 3.6 million displaced persons as a result of the ISIS war and over a decade of conflict since the 2003 US-led invasion.

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