ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Displaced Kurdish families from the towns of Jalawla and Sadia in Diyala province have told Rudaw they are reluctant to return home, six years after liberation from the Islamic State terror group (ISIS).
"For us, there is no life in Sadia, no services, no security. The population has dwindled dramatically. Where to return? I no longer have a home there," Sana Mahmood, a Kurdish IDP from Sadia told Rudaw in Qoratu camp.
The war-battered towns of Jalawla and Sadia lie in disputed areas claimed by both Erbil and Baghdad, now controlled by Shiite militia groups under network of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al Shaabi in Arabic). The towns fell to ISIS in June 2014 and were retaken in November of the same year following a major joint operation by the Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi forces.
Before ISIS, Jalawla had a population of 80,000, 80 percent of whom were Arabs. Sadia was home to 40,000 people, the vast majority of whom were also Arabs.
More than 85 percent of their Kurdish inhabitants now live in camps, or in towns and cities across the Kurdistan Region.
Qoratu IDP Camp was built in the Garmiyan administration in the summer of 2015, sheltering more than 540 Kurdish and Arab families. Under pressure from the Iraqi government as part of a nationwide campaign to encourage IDPs to return to the liberated areas, many of them went home. There are only 143 families remaining, the majority of them Kurds.
But returning home is not easy.
Kurdish IDP Manahl Wahid returned home to Sadia shortly after its liberation, only to go back to the camp a week later.
"We returned out of fear," Wahid said. "Sadia is dangerous."
“Those who randomly return have some sort of backing by some people. That is why it is easy for them to return,” said an Arab IDP who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
"It is a lie if somebody says they return to Sadia and Jalawla because they have a home. Those who go back make a house out of tents and plastic. This is wrong. You must return when there is security, where there is authority to protect you," he added.
A Kurdish local official says association with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Kurdish political parties is a main factor discouraging IDPs from returning home.
"The Kurdish families from Jalawla and Sadia, those who have members in the Kurdish political parties, or those who are KRG employees are very much afraid to return to their areas," said Bestoon Zhazhlaiy, in charge of humanitarian affairs in Garmiyan.
"They are afraid of Daesh (ISIS) and other militia groups associated with Hashd," he added.
Many homes remain destroyed after the fight with ISIS, according to Zhazhlaiy.
Related: Jalawla, Sadia seethe in sectarian rivalries
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