At the end of June the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Interior Minister Rebar Ahmed announced that the displaced (IDP) camps in the region would not be closed by July 30. That was the deadline set by the Displacement Ministry to have all the camps shuttered across the country. This follows a pattern of the KRG refusing to follow the orders of the Ministry.
There are still 23 camps in Iraq that house around 150,000 people. In total there are still over 1 million displaced seven years after the war versus the Islamic State ended.
Every government since Maliki’s has called for the end of the displacement file. There is talk about aid and incentives to get people to return to their homes but the reality is that the authorities offer little. The last several governments have been closing down camps whether people want to leave or not in an attempt to claim victory over the issue by simply kicking IDPs out. The Sudani administration is doing the same.
There are several reasons why there are still so many displaced in Iraq. One is the lack of jobs and services in many areas. Families associated with the Islamic State have been banned from returning. Some parts of the country like the Sinjar district in northern Ninewa have never been rebuilt because Baghdad had no reconstruction strategy. Finally there are some areas that were emptied by the Hashd of Sunnis because they were considered important for one reason or another and no one has been allowed back since then. This likely means the displaced issue will not end just as there were one million displaced during the civil war period that never returned either.
SOURCES
Bas News, “IDP Camps to Remain Open Beyond July 30: KRG,” 6/27/24
International Organization for Migration, “Iraq Master List Report 131, Data Collection Period September-December 2023,” March 2024
Mahmoud, Sinan, “UNHCR voices concerns over Iraqi government decision to close IDP camps,” The National, 6/10/24
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