Iraq
Iraqi IDPs in Peshmerga-controlled areas in Nineveh Plain return to their homes on April 2, 2022. Photo: handout/Iraqi migration ministry
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Over 150 Iraqis, who were displaced to camps in the Kurdistan Region in recent years due to the Islamic State (ISIS) conflict, returned to their homes on Saturday under the supervision of the federal government, announced the Iraqi migration and displacement ministry.
After security checkups by Iraqi forces, 34 families consisting of a total of 162 individuals were “voluntarily” returned to their homes in the Nineveh province along with all of their belongings from the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Peshmerga-held areas on Erbil-Mosul border, the ministry said in a statement.
The process, carried out under the supervision of minister Othman al-Ghanmi, is part of the Iraqi ministry’s emergency plan to “voluntarily return the displaced to their original places of residence and close the displacement file.”
In March, 27 families consisting of 107 individuals from the IDP camps in Sulaimani were returned to their homes to the provinces of Nineveh, Salahaddin, and Anbar, as a part of the same plan.
More than half of the IDPs in the Kurdistan Region’s camps are Sunni Arabs and Yazidis from Nineveh province who fled federal-controlled areas in 2014 when ISIS took vast swathes of Iraqi territory.
Many IDPs are reluctant to return home because of continuing violence in their original areas, a lack of reconstruction following the destruction of their homes, and little in the way of basic services.
The Iraqi government has closed almost all IDP camps in the country, except for those in the Kurdistan Region.
After security checkups by Iraqi forces, 34 families consisting of a total of 162 individuals were “voluntarily” returned to their homes in the Nineveh province along with all of their belongings from the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Peshmerga-held areas on Erbil-Mosul border, the ministry said in a statement.
The process, carried out under the supervision of minister Othman al-Ghanmi, is part of the Iraqi ministry’s emergency plan to “voluntarily return the displaced to their original places of residence and close the displacement file.”
In March, 27 families consisting of 107 individuals from the IDP camps in Sulaimani were returned to their homes to the provinces of Nineveh, Salahaddin, and Anbar, as a part of the same plan.
More than half of the IDPs in the Kurdistan Region’s camps are Sunni Arabs and Yazidis from Nineveh province who fled federal-controlled areas in 2014 when ISIS took vast swathes of Iraqi territory.
Many IDPs are reluctant to return home because of continuing violence in their original areas, a lack of reconstruction following the destruction of their homes, and little in the way of basic services.
The Iraqi government has closed almost all IDP camps in the country, except for those in the Kurdistan Region.
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