Iraqi migration ministry closing Salamiya IDP camp: official

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A Nineveh province camp once home to over 2,000 internally displaced families is being emptied, a migration ministry official told Rudaw English on Tuesday, as the Iraqi government continues its push to close down camps.

Salamiya camp in Hamdaniya district, southeast of the city of Mosul , was home to “around 2,400 families”, senior migration and displacement ministry official Ali Abbas Jahakir said.

"The Ministry of Migration and Displacement has given the families in Salamiya camp a short time frame of several days to arrange their papers and return to their residential areas”.

Families with suspected links to the Islamic State (ISIS) “will be moved to al-Jadaa camp in Mosul", Jahakir said.

“They cannot return [home] because of the tribal persecution and societal rejection".

ISIS seized control of large swathes of Iraqi territory in 2014, displacing up to six million Iraqis – some of whom found refuge in host communities, while others settled in camps.

Since 2017, more than 1.35 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), equaling roughly 572,000 families, have returned from IDP camps to their homes, Jahakir said.

The migration ministry's October 2020 decision to accelerate camp closures with limited notice to residents has has put more than 100,000 people in "tremendous peril", according to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

Human rights organizations have warned against forcing families to return home to areas that are still uninhabitable.

"The ongoing closures of Iraq's displaced persons camps on short notice is forcing some residents into homelessness and poverty," Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in December.

“Iraqi authorities have generally made decisions on where these families can live without adequate consultation, deciding either to leave them in the area which they fled, move them to another camp, or force them to return to their home areas", HRW added.

"Return will not be done without preparation in terms of services, housing,” Jahakir said. “We will not force anyone to leave."