ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - As the Iraqi government’s July deadline for the permanent shutdown of IDP camps in the Kurdistan Region nears, the displaced have started to worry about the closure of the camps they have called home, citing a lack of basic services in their hometowns and saying they have nowhere to go.
The Erbil office of Iraq’s migration and displaced ministry has ramped up efforts to implement an Iraqi government decision to close all IDP camps in the country, including in the Kurdistan Region, before July 30.
The Iraqi government has told the IDPs that if they do not wish to return to their hometowns, they can be resettled in another Iraqi province or the cities and towns of the Kurdistan Region.
“The dossier and subject of IDPs must end. Those who opt to return to their hometowns will be given four million dinars along with some electronic household appliances such as televisions, fridges, and other essentials,” Ali Abbas, spokesperson of the Iraqi ministry of migration and displaced, told Rudaw.
“Additionally, there will be employment. Two percent of employment allocations in Nineveh province will go to the returnees,” he added.
There are 15 camps for refugees and IDPs in the Kurdistan Region’s provinces – six in Erbil, four in Sulaimani, and five in Duhok. Together, they host around 650,000 people, according to statistics from the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Joint Crisis Coordination Center.
Many IDPs are reluctant to return home because of continuing violence in their hometowns, a lack of reconstruction following the destruction of their homes, and little in the way of basic services. Some who voluntarily left the camps to salvage their homes and livelihoods have been forced to return to the camps, unable to piece together the basics.
Haji Qasem is an IDP from Nineveh province. He currently lives at the Baharka camp, located just north of Erbil city. He is against the forceful closure of the IDP camps, saying he has 61 children and grandchildren but no properties in Mosul.
“We do not want to return. There are no services. We own no property. They will give three to four million dinars, but what to buy with this amount? Concrete blocks or ceiling metals or cement?” he lamented.
The KRG on multiple occasions has said it supports a voluntary return of the IDPs.
Haifa Hassan, another IDP, expressed strong rejection to leaving the camp, saying her family has no sources of income back in Mosul.
“We will not exit here. We indeed do not want to leave this camp at all and we have no sources of income,” Hassan said.
Following the Islamic State’s (ISIS) takeover of large swathes of land in Iraq from 2014 to 2017, around 1.8 million Iraqis from the Sunni-inhabited provinces sought refuge in the Kurdistan Region.
Chief of Iraq’s most vulnerable communities is the Yazidis, who were subjected to countless heinous atrocities, including forced marriages, sexual violence, and massacres when ISIS captured their homeland of Sinjar (Shingal) in 2014, bringing destruction to many villages and towns populated by the minority group.
The Yazidis were forced to flee to displacement camps across Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.
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