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Iraq
IDPs board a bus to return to their home areas across Nineveh province in July 2019. Photo: Ministry of Migration and Displacement social media
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region- Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displacement announced the federal government-assisted return of hundreds of Iraqi IDPs to their home areas across the province of Nineveh, as the painstaking process of returning internally displaced persons (IDPs) who seek to travel home after years of violence continues.
In the past week, 423 IDPs were returned home from camps in the east and south of the city of Mosul to their home areas across Nineveh province, the Ministry claimed in a statement released on Sunday. Of the returnees, 142 were from Khazir and Hasan Sham IDP camps in the Kurdistan Region, while 281 of the IDPs were from the Jadaa, Hamam Alil, and Southern Mosul Airport Track camps.
“The Ministry, in cooperation with the Ministry of Transport and the Joint Operations Command, dedicated buses to transport those IDPs who wish to return to their areas in Nineveh,” the statement quoted Ali Abbas Jahagir as saying.
Trucks transporting the IDPs’ belongings, including furniture and electrical appliances, were also provided, he added.
Forming part of a longer term initiative in cooperation with the relevant authorities in the province to return IDPs home, Jahangir said, they returned to the Syrian border town of Baaj, Tel Afar, Tel Abta, al-Mihalabya, Hamidat, Northern Terminal, al-Nahrawan and Mosul’s city centre.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 1.7 million of a total 5.9 million IDPs in Iraq are still yet to return home after Islamic State swept through the north and west of Iraq in 2014, causing a civilian exodus from Nineveh and its neighbouring provinces.
Of internally displaced Mosul residents, around 300,000 are unable to return to their homes, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), two years after the city was declared liberated from ISIS.
Fierce urban warfare ravaged Mosul as the Iraqi Army fought to reclaim the city and its surrounding areas in 2017. Some 138,000 houses were damaged or destroyed, the NRC said, leaving swathes of the already devastated province uninhabitable.
The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) warned in June that 70 percent of mines and other explosive hazards remain uncleared in Nineveh and other areas of Iraq ravaged by war with ISIS, preventing millions of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from returning home.
Reconstruction has in part been hindered by the embezzlement of federal funds by Nineveh government officials, with an Iraq Integrity Commission report published in April claiming that around $64 million was stolen by former governor Nineveh Nawfal Hamadi and other officials.
Mosul’s residents have also complained of a widespread lack of jobs and services after their return, despite a flurry of government and NGO initiatives attempting to tackle the lack of available opportunities.
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