Iraq
Government employees do preparation work in Erbil for Iraq’s population census. Photo: Bilind T. Abdullah
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Yazidi, Turkmen, and Kurds have all raised concerns over inclusion and fairness in Iraq’s census as the government strives to reassure people and highlight the survey’s primary goal - development.
“If a census is taken now, a lot of people are in camps, abroad, and places that are unstable… All of this will have an impact on a proper census among a major community in Iraq who are the Yazidis,” Faris Shingali, advisor to Mir Hazim Tahsin Bag, the spiritual leader of the Yazidi community, told Rudaw on Thursday.
For months, Iraq has been laying the groundwork to complete its national census for the first time since the fall of the Baathist regime. The enumeration will commence on November 20.
In early October, the Kurdistan Region began preparations, identifying and recording housing units and household numbers within designated areas.
This process has sparked concern among some who worry that missing early census steps could impact their inclusion in subsequent ones, particularly among displaced populations or in disputed territories such as Kirkuk where the demographic landscape has shifted, with thousands of Arab settlers residing on land confiscated from the original owners under Baathist policies.
Many Yazidis are yet to return to their homes in Shingal and areas in Nineveh province that they fled when Islamic State (ISIS) militants swept through northern Iraq in 2014, committing genocide. According to information obtained by Rudaw from Iraq's migration and displacement ministry, around 24,000 Yazidis have returned to their homes, while around 40,000 remain in camps and in other provinces of the Kurdistan Region.
According to the most recent figures from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), released in March by the Joint Crisis Coordination Center, there are more than 630,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Kurdistan Region.
Nawfal Sleman, head of Nineveh’s statistics office, said IDPs "will be registered wherever they are during the visit of the census team, whether in the refugee camp or in any district or subdistrict,” and both their current and previous places of residence will be recorded.
A joint committee has been established between the planning ministries of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region to coordinate the census, according to Ali Arian, the executive head of the Iraqi census.
"An agreement has been reached on the manner of doing the census,” he told Rudaw.
One controversial decision has been to exclude ethnicity data, something that has been a problem in previous census attempts. The Iraqi government, instead, has focused on the goal of using the census to assess living conditions for developmental purposes.
“The difference between the 2024 census and the 1957 census is that it was not a census for development, but to record people's information for citizenship for national card issuance. This year's census aims to know the details of citizens' living conditions to set plans and improve their condition,” said Abdul Zahra al-Hindawi, spokesperson for Iraq’s planning ministry.
How the data will be used is a concern for Turkmen.
Arshad al-Salihi, head of the Iraqi Turkmen Front bloc in the federal parliament, said on Thursday that he explained to Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani the necessity of having a federal decree declaring that only the 1957 census will be relied upon for political purposes, otherwise, they will not accept any other census.
He made his statement after meeting with Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid, Prime Minister Sudani, and KRG representatives on Thursday.
Sudani’s office described the census as a necessary tool for economic and social development.
Concerns from the Kurdish delegation focused on tight timelines, budget limitations, the absence of a dedicated database for the Kurdistan Region as was initially requested in August, and the fact that the census process began in other parts of Iraq a month before starting in the Kurdistan Region.
Time constraints meant they were unable to establish a data centre in Erbil, according to Hawre Tofiq, head of the relations and international organizations office at the Iraqi presidency. He said that KRG teams were invited to jointly manage the process at federal centres and that Iraq’s planning minister has assured full transparency.
Hastyar Qadir contributed to this report.
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