ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Ten residents of the Makhmour refugee camp in northern Iraq, which houses Kurdish refugees from Turkey, have been detained in Baghdad since late August after going to the capital for work, a camp source said on Tuesday.
“Those people went to Baghdad for work and had been detained by security forces since August 24th,” a source from the camp told Rudaw.
According to camp residents, the Iraqi government has not allowed provisions to enter the camp since August 10.
“Iraqi forces do not even allow [people] to go to Iraqi provinces for work or medical treatment,” the resident said.
Makhmour camp, located southwest of Erbil and administratively part of Nineveh province, was established in 1998 and is home to around 10,000 Kurdish refugees from southeast Turkey, most of whom were displaced during Turkey’s conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) when their villages were depopulated.
According to camp authorities, residents are currently barred from working, accessing hospitals, or enrolling in universities. Many have been unable to renew expired refugee documents, preventing them from passing through checkpoints. This restriction on their movements has led to a shortage of basic essentials in the camp, including medical supplies.
Iraq has denied the blockade, with migration and displaced ministry spokesperson Ali Abbas telling Rudaw in July that camp residents “are officially registered with the Iraqi state and have no problems and are free to move to all provinces.”
In May, a delegation from the camp council went to Baghdad to raise concerns over what they called “the blockade imposed by the Iraqi government” with the Iraqi justice ministry. Iraqi forces arrested them, releasing them a month later.
The camp has been caught in regional tensions for years. Turkey considers it a PKK stronghold. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has labeled it an “incubation center for terrorism.” The camp has been the target of Turkish airstrikes and drone attacks.
The PKK, which has fought Turkey for decades, deployed fighters to protect the camp from Islamic State (ISIS) attacks in 2014 but said they withdrew in October 2023.
On July 11, the PKK held a ceremonial disarmament in the Kurdistan Region. Thirty members and commanders burned their weapons, acting on jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan’s call to abandon their armed struggle for a political solution to secure Kurdish rights in Turkey. A Turkish parliamentary commission has been formed to establish a legal framework for the peace process.
Iraq banned the PKK last year under pressure from Ankara.
Soran Hussein contributed to this report.
