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Kurdistan
Masrour Barzani, Prime Minister of Kurdistan Region, sits alongside a child from northeast Syria in a tent in Bardarash camp, Duhok province on November 9, 2019. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Prime Minister of Kurdistan Region Masrour Barzani made an unannounced visit to a refugee camp in Duhok province on Saturday, where some of those displaced by the Turkish military offensive in northeast Syria have sought shelter.
Barzani spoke to both aid workers and refugees on his visit to Bardarash camp, 32 kilometers northeast of Mosul.
“We are committed to welcoming and helping refugee families settle in Kurdistan Region, and to providing them with enough support and humanitarian aid,” Barzani said.
Hosting the prime minister in his tent, one refugee implored him to do what he could to help refugees return to their homes in northeast Syria.
“We ask you to help us to return to our hometowns, we hope a political solution will be reached soon,” he said.
“We will not ignore you, we will keep on supporting you and providing you with daily needs,” responded the PM.
“This is your home and we welcome you with open arms,” Barzani tweeted after his visit to the camp on Saturday.
He also called on international partners to support the efforts of Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to shelter those most in need in what he described as a “global crisis.”
Around 15,000 refugees have fled northern Syria and crossed into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq since Turkey began its offensive against Kurdish forces, sparking mass displacement and a humanitarian crisis.
Turkey, along with the Syrian proxy forces it backs, began Operation Peace Spring on October 9 in a bid to create a ‘safe zone’ free of the US-backed, Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG), considered by Ankara to be a terrorist organization. The area is to be resettled with 3,000,000 Syrian refugees, Turkey says, which Kurdish leaders say amounts to forced demographic change in the mixed Kurdish, Arab and Christian area.
To date, more than 200 civilians have been killed, while 300,000 people have been displaced. UNICEF on Sunday put the number of northeast Syrian children displaced by the operation at 80,000.
The Kurdistan Region is currently home to over a million refugees who have fled conflict in neighboring areas.
It currently hosts 237,000 Syrian refugees who fled civil war and the onslaught of Islamic State (ISIS), according to the KRG’s Joint Crisis Coordination Centre (JCC).
The region also hosts at least 800,000 Iraqis, most of whom fled the advance or rule of ISIS in the provinces of Nineveh, Saladin and Anbar.
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