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Kurdistan
A Syrian couple sits it in front of a tent upon their arrival at the Bardarash camp, Duhok province on Oct 16, 2019. Photo: Hussein Malla/AP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - On International Refugee Day, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has criticized Baghdad for its lack of financial support in providing for the one million refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Kurdistan Region.
Hoshang Mohammed, head of the KRG Joint Crisis Coordination Center (JCC) told Rudaw that around 1,009,000 refugees and IDPs are currently in the Kurdistan Region.
"Of this number, 40 percent of the refugees and 25 percent of the IDPs are sheltered across 35 refugee camps. The rest live in cities," Mohammed said.
"This is a huge financial burden on the Kurdistan Region, especially in terms of providing them with basic services, housing, security and other services like education, health, water, electricity and hygiene services in and outside of the camps," Mohammed added.
According to the JCC, current spending on IDPs and refugees in the Kurdistan Region totals $78 million a month.
"The vast majority of this spending is covered by the KRG itself and the remaining 25 percent is covered by the UN and other agencies and five percent is covered by international donors."
He added that once Iraq declared Islamic State (ISIS) defeated, Baghdad halted aid to the KRG to provide for the displaced.
"According to our studies, from 2014 to 2020, the total cost of the IDPs has been more than seven billion dollars earmarked by the Kurdistan Regional Government. The Iraqi government has only contributed a budget of 184 billion dinars[$154 million]," he said.
He says the Iraqi Ministry of Migration only provides "food baskets and some basic necessities, as well as heating oil during winter."
"Services do not amount only to food baskets, but other essentials including electricity, water, hygiene services, security, health, and education," he added.
At the height of the war with ISIS, some six million Iraqis were displaced across the country. Displacement was particularly pronounced in the north and west of the country in the provinces of Anbar, Nineveh, Kirkuk, and Saladin. Hundreds of thousands of people also fled to the Kurdistan Region from Syria.
The latest influx of refugees into the Kurdistan Region was October 2019, when Turkey launched a military incursion in northeast Syria. Approximately 20,790 Syrian refugees have entered the Kurdistan Region since October, according to the JCC.
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