KRG preventing thousands of Sunni Arabs from returning home: watchdog

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – More than 4,000 Sunni Arabs, displaced in Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)-controlled areas due to the Islamic State (ISIS) war are being prevented from returning home by the KRG, according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released on Friday. But Kurdish authorities are denying the report, accusing watchdog of relying on “unconfirmed” accounts. 

“The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is preventing about 4,200 Sunni Arabs from returning home to 12 villages east of Mosul,” read the Human Rights Watch report. 

Human Rights Watch is accusing the KRG of only allowing Kurds and Arabs with connections to the KRG to return to the Hamdaniyah district in the Nineveh province.

“KRG authorities have only allowed Kurdish residents and Arabs with KRG ties to return, in violation of international humanitarian law,” the report said on Hamdaniyah.

There is no reason for the denial of the right to return, according to the report. The organization’s acting Middle East director Lama Fakih said in the report that the KRG is “preventing thousands of Arab villagers from returning home without a lawful reason […] The fact that the KRG is permitting Kurdish and well-connected Arab residents back suggests that these villagers are being improperly punished.”

Human Rights Watch said they have conducted three investigations into the alleged prevention of internally displaced persons (IDPs) by Kurdish authorities, with the latest being conducted in June 2019. At the time, the organization said it “interviewed 11 Arab residents of Hasansham camp from the villages of Hasansham, Manquba, Shirkan, and Tal Aswad” in Hamdaniya.  

The KRG said Human Rights Watch made use of unconfirmed information in the report, however. The KRG coordinator for international advocacy Dindar Zebari said the group was “mostly relying on other local sources while they [HRW] themselves have not confirmed them,” in an email sent to Rudaw English on Friday. Zebari also said the report did not mention the facilitations provided by the KRG to the watchdog. 

According to Zebari, some IDPs cannot return due to a lack of security, destroyed homes, and “no sources of income.”

“Return is difficult,” he said of the villages Human Rights Watch mentioned.

When ISIS swept through northern Iraq in summer 2014, it took control of large swathes of territory in the country, especially in Sunni-populated areas like the Nineveh province. Millions of people fled to other parts of Iraq, Kurdistan Region and Syria as a result

Iraq recaptured Mosul and its surrounding areas in the Nineveh province from ISIS in June 2017 after a lengthy campaign involving Iraqi security forces, the Kurdish Peshmerga and the US-led anti-ISIS international coalition. 

There are still about 800,000 Iraqi IDPs in the Kurdistan Region, mostly from the Nineveh, Saladin and Anbar provinces, according to the KRG’s Joint Crisis Coordination Centre (JCC). 

Hoshang Mohammed, head of the JCC, told Rudaw last month that thousands of IDPs have returned to the Kurdistan Region after first going back to their homes elsewhere in Iraq this year amidst poor living conditions and security in their areas. 

Human Rights Watch similarly criticized the Iraqi government in June for punishing the families of those people who had allegedly joined ISIS by preventing them from returning to their homes, and forcing them to accept “dire conditions” of camps.  

“Iraqi authorities have put in place a system that has allowed communities, security forces, and government agencies to collectively punish families whose relatives were allegedly linked to ISIS,” said Belkis Wille, senior researcher for Iraq at Human Rights Watch.

The organization also lambasted the Iraqi government on Wednesday or the forced return of more than 2,000 IDPs amid alleged threats by locals against the returnees. 

“Some were forced to return to their home regions, despite fears for their safety, including from former neighbors who perceive them as being linked to the Islamic State (ISIS). Some have come under attack since being forced home,” the report said.