The International Organization for Migration (IOM) the main group working with the Iraqi government and United Nations on displacement found that the number of returns has slowed in 2018.
A total of 3,829,758
displaced people have made the trip home by the end of May 2018. In that
month alone, 119,070 went back. Ninewa had the largest number of returns with
1,416,804. Most of those have gone to Mosul, Tal Afar and Hamdaniya. After that
Anbar, 1,254,654, and Salahaddin 534,000, have received the most people. Those
numbers are going down this year however. At the end of 2017 over 200,000
people were making
the trip back every month. That rate has been cut in half this year.
At the end of 2017 roughly 90%
of displaced (IDPs) said they wanted to go home. That has now declined to
60%. The main reason that number has gone down is due to the destruction of
homes and property, the lack of jobs, security, and the need to resolve local
issues. In Anbar for example, Human Rights Watch reported
that twice people were turned back from trying to go back to their homes in
Baghdadi because they were accused of being Islamic State sympathizers. In Sinjar,
in west Ninewa, almost the entire Arab population has said they were afraid to
return because they feared retribution by Yazidis who blamed them for
supporting the insurgency. Most of the Yazidi population were still IDPs as
well because there is still had unexploded ordinance and many of their homes
were destroyed. These issues can be seen in other provinces across northern and
central Iraq.
In 2017 IOM warned that a large number of IDPs may never go
home. These latest reports and others are confirming the group’s fears. There
has been no effort at reconciliation, and the government has been slow to rebuild
destroyed areas. A large population is also being banned from returning due to
their ties to the Islamic State. After the 2005-08 civil war over 1 million
people never returned. The same thing is likely to happen this time around if
these trends continue.
SOURCES
Human Rights Watch,
“Iraq: Displaced Families Blocked from Returning,” 6/24/18
International
Organization for Migration, “Iraq: Displacement Tracking Matrix – Returns
Dashboard, May 2018,” 5/31/18
- “Returns Continue
While Obstacles to Return Remain in Ira: IOM,” 6/26/18
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