ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - This is the fourth consecutive Ramadan that refugees and internally displaced persons have spent in Hassan Sham camp.
Amid miserable living conditions, camp residents say this year was the worst so far, due to bad weather coupled with the spread of coronavirus- which has brought camp life to a standstill.
"Due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, we have witnessed the worst kind of economic situation," Sharif Abbas, a Turkmen camp resident, told Rudaw over the weekend.
Sharif, who has been married to a woman from northeast Syria – known to Kurds as Rojava -northern Syria for 25 years added that their livelihood is "reliant upon aid and donations" from humanitarian organizations.
The couple are "thankful" to the camp management who have “spared no efforts” to distribute aid, he added.
Kurdish authorities have imposed a raft of policies to prevent an outbreak of the coronavirus in the Kurdistan Region's refugee and IDP camps.
Hassan Sham camp, home to 6,000 IDPs, most of them displaced from Mosul, is just one of several camps to impose stringent rules.
If any of the residents of the camp leave, they will not be allowed back in for 30 days.
Medical services inside the camp are open as normal, but schooling hasCOVID been suspended. The Barzani Charity Foundation, which manages the camp, has encouraged social distancing.
The measures have had negative side effects, however, almost doubling the price of goods, placing further strain on already poor residents. Aid deliveries have also been delayed.
The KRG governs 38 camps, home to nearly a million IDPs and refugees.